BOOKS ON
EGYPT AND CHALD^A
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., LlTT.D., D.LlT.
Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in
the British Museum
L. W. KING, M.A.
Assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquities in the British Museum
Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net each
Vol. I.— EGYPTIAN RELIGION : Egyptian Ideas
of the Future Life. By E. A. WALLIS
BUDGE.
Vol. II.— EGYPTIAN MAGIC. By E. A. WALLIS
BUDGE.
Vol. III.— EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE: Easy Lessons
in Egyptian Hieroglyphics. By E. A.
WALLIS BUDGE.
Vol. IV.— BABYLpNIAN RELIGION: Babylonian
Religion and Mythology. By L. W. KING.
Vol. V.— ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE: Easy Lessons
in the Cuneiform Texts. By L. W. KING,
M.A.
Vols. VI., VII., VIII.— THE BOOK OF THE DEAD:
an English Translation of the Chapters.
Hymns, &c., of the Theban Recension.
With Introduction, Notes, and numerous
Illustrations. By E. A. WALLIS BUDGE,
Litt.D.
Vols. IX.-XVL— A HISTORY OF EGYPT, from the
end of the Neolithic Period to the Death of
Cleopatra VII., B.C. 30. ByE. A. WALLIS
BUDGE, Litt.D. 8 vols. Illustrated.
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHAPTER PAOB
I. THE CRRATIOW ... ... ... ... 25
II. ISIS SUCKLING HORUS IN THE PAPYRUS SWAMP ... 57
III. THE SOUL OF OSEBIS AND THE SOUL OF RA MEETING
IN TATTU. RA, IN THE FORM OF A CAT, CUTTINO
OFF THE HEAD OF THE SERPENT OF DARKNESS ... 63
IV. THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD IN THE HALL OF MAATI 137
V. THE DECEASED BEING LED INTO THE PRESENCE OF
OSIKIS ... , . ... ... ... 147
VI. THE SEKHET-AAKU OR " ELYSIAN FIELDS " —
(1) FROM THE PAPYRUS OF NEBSENI ... ... 177
(2) FROM THE PAPYRUS OF ANI ... ... 181
(3) FROM THE PAPYRUS OF ANHAI ... ... 187
JBooEs on Eggpt an& Cbal£>a:a
VOL. I.
EGYPTIAN IDEAS OF THE
FUTURE LIFE
PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
IN the year 1894 Dr. Wallis Budge prepared for Messrs. Kegan
Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. an elementary work on the Egyptian
language, entitled "First Steps in Egyptian," and two years
later the companion volume, " An Egyptian Reading Book," with
transliterations of all the texts printed in it, and a full vocabulary.
The success of these works proved that they had helped to satisfy
a want long felt by students of the Egyptian language, and as a
similar want existed among students of the languages written in
the cuneiform character, Mr. L. W. King, of the British Museum,
prepared, on the same lines as the two books mentioned above,
an elementary work on the Assyrian and Babylonian languages
("First Steps in Assyrian"), which appeared in 1898. These
works, however, dealt mainly with the philological branch of
Egyptology and Assyriology, and it was impossible in the space
allowed to explain much that needed explanation in the other
branches of these subjects — that is to say, matters relating to the
archaeology, history, religion, etc., of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and
Babylonians. In answer to the numerous requests which have
been made, a series of short, popular handbooks on the most
important branches of Egyptology and Assyriology have been
prepared, and it is hoped that these will serve as introductions to
the larger works on these subjects. The present is the first volume
of the series, and the succeeding volumes will be published at short
intervals, and at moderate prices.
on j£g\>pt ant)
EGYPTIAN IDEAS
OF THE
FUTURE LIFE
BY
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., Lirr.D., D.Lix.
KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
THIRD EDITION
.
I ' 2 ' °^
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LT_D
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1908
M^CROrORMED BY
r
ERVICES
The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.
To
SIR JOHN EVANS, K.C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S.,
ETC., ETC., ETC.
IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE
OF
MUCH FRIENDLY HELP AND ENCOURAGEMENT
PREFACE.
THE following pages are intended to place before the
reader in a handy form an account of the principal
ideas and beliefs held by the ancient Egyptians con-
cerning the resurrection and the future life, which is
derived wholly from native religious works. / The
literature of Egypt which deals with these subjects is
large and, as was to be expected, the product of different
periods which, taken together, cover several thousands
of years; and it is exceedingly difficult at times to
reconcile the statements and beliefs of a writer of one
period with those of a writer of another. Up to the
present no systematic account of the doctrine of the
resurrection and of the future life has been discovered,
and there is no reason for hoping that such a thing will
ever be found, for the Egyptians do not appear to have
thought that it was necessary to write a work of the
kind. The inherent difficulty of the subject, and the
natural impossibility that different men living in
x Preface.
different places and at different times should think
alike on matters which must, after all, belong always
to the region of faith, render it more than probable that
no college of priests, however powerful, was able to
formulate a system of beliefs which would be received
throughout Egypt by the clergy and the laity alike, and
would be copied by the scribes as a final and authorita-
tive work on Egyptian eschatology. Besides this, the
genius and structure of the Egyptian language are such
as to preclude the possibility of composing in it works
of a philosophical or metaphysical character in the true
sense of the words. In spite of these difficulties, how-
ever, it is possi'ble to collect a great deal of important
information on the subject from the funereal and
religious works which have come down to us, especially
concerning the great central idea of immortality, which
existed unchanged for thousands of years, and formed
the pivot upon which the religious and social life of
the ancient Egyptians actually turned. [From the
beginning to the end of his life the Egyptian's chief
thought was of the life beyond the grave, and the
hewing of his tomb in the rock, and the providing of
its furniture, every detail of which was prescribed by
the custom of the country, absorbed the best thoughts
of his mind and a large share of his worldly goods, and
kept him ever mindful of the time when his mummified
Preface. xi
body would be borne to his " everlasting house " in the
limestone plateau or hill.
The chief source of our information concerning the
doctrine of the resurrection and of the future life as
held by the Egyptians is, of course, the great collection
of religious texts generally known by the name of
" Book of the Dead." The various recensions of these
wonderful compositions cover a period of more than
five thousand years, and they reflect faithfully not only
the sublime beliefs, and the high ideals, and the noble
aspirations of the educated Egyptians, but also the
various superstitions and childish reverence for amulets,
and magical rites, and charms, which they probably
inherited from their pre-dynastic ancestors, and re-
garded as essentials for their salvation. It must be
distinctly understood that many passages and allusions
in the Book of the Dead still remain obscure, and
that in some places any translator will be at a difficulty
in attempting to render certain important words into
any modern European language. But it is absurd to
talk of almost the whole text of the Book of the Dead
as being utterly corrupt, for royal personages, and
priests, and scribes, to say nothing of the ordinary
educated folk, would not have caused costly copies of
a very lengthy work to be multiplied, and illustrated by
artists possessing the highest skill, unless it had some
xii Preface.
meaning to them, and was necessary for the attainment
by them of the life which is beyond the grave. The
" finds •" of recent .years in Egypt have resulted in the
recovery of valuable texts whereby numerous difficulties
have been cleared away ; and we must hope that the
faults made in translating to-day may be corrected by
the discoveries of to-morrow. In spite of all difficulties,
both textual and grammatical, sufficient is now known
of the Egyptian religion to prove, with certainty, that
the Egyptians possessed, some six thousand years ago,
a religion and a system of morality which, when
stripped of all corrupt accretions, stand second to none
among those which have been developed by the greatest
nations of the world.
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE.
LONDOX,
August 2ltt, 1899.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAG«
I. THE BELIEF IN GOD ALMIGHTY ... ... • ... 1
II. OSIEIS THE GOD OF THE RESURRECTION ... 41
III. THE "GODS" OF THE EGYPTIANS ... ... 84
IV. THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD ... ... 110
V. THE RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY ... ... 157
EGYPTIAN IDEAS OF THE
FUTURE LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
THE BELIEF IN GOD ALMIGHTY.
A STUDY of ancient Egyptian religious texts will con-
vince the reader that the Egyptians believed' in One
God, who was self-existent, immortal, invisible, eternal,
omniscient, almighty, and inscrutable ; the maker of
the heavens, earth, and underworld ; the creator of the
sky and the sea, men and women, animals and birds,
fish and creeping things, trees and plants, and the
incorporeal beings who were the messengers that ful-
filled his wish and word. It is necessary to place this
definition of the first part of the belief of the Egyptian
at the beginning of the first chapter of this brief
account of the principal religious ideas which he held,
for the whole of his theology and religion was based
upon it ; and it is also necessary to add that, however
B
2 ORIGIN OF THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION UNKNOWN.
far back we follow his literature, we never seem to
approach a time when he was without this remarkable
belief. It is true that he also developed polytheistic
ideas and beliefs, and that he cultivated them at certain
periods of his history with diligence, and to such a
degree that the nations around, and even the stranger
in his country, were misled by his actions, and de-
scribed him as a polytheistic idolater. But notwith-
standing all such departures from observances, the
keeping of which befitted those who believed in God
and his unity, this sublime idea was never lost sight
of; on the contrary, it is reproduced in the religious
literature of all periods. Whence came this remark-
able characteristic of the Egyptian religion no man
can say, and there is no evidence whatsoever to guide
us in formulating the theory that it was brought into
Egypt by immigrants from the East, as some have
said, or that it was a natural product of the indigenous
peoples who formed the population of the valley of
the Nile some ten thousand years ago, according to
the opinion of others. All that is known is that it
existed there at a period so remote that it is useless
to attempt to measure by years the interval of time
which has elapsed since it grew up and established
itself in the minds of men, and that it is exceedingly
doubtful if we shall ever have any very definite know-
ledge on this interesting point.
But though we know nothing about the period of
THE WORD NETER. 3
the origin in Egypt of the belief in the existence of an
almighty God who was One, the inscriptions show us
that this Being was called by a name which was some-
thing like Nder} the picture sign for which was an
axe-head, made probably of stone, let into a long
wooden handle. The coloured picture character shews
that the axe-head was fastened into the handle by
thongs of leather or string, and judging by the general
look of the object it must have been a formidable
weapon in strong, skilled hands. A theory has recently
been put forward to the effect that the picture character
represents a stick with a bit of coloured rag tied to
the top, but it will hardly commend itself to any
archaeologist. The lines which cross the side of the
axe-head represent string or strips of leather, and
indicate that it was made of stone which, being brittle,
was liable to crack ; the picture characters which
delineate the object in the latter dynasties shew that
metal took the place of the stone axe-head, and
being tough the new substance needed no support.
The mightiest man in the prehistoric days was he
who had the best weapon, and knew how to wield it
with the greatest effect ; when the prehistoric hero of
many fights and victories passed to his rest, his own
or a similar weapon was buried with him to enable
him to wage war successfully in the next world. The
1 There is no e in Egyptian, and this vowel is added merely to
make the word pronounceable.
4 DERIVATION FROM COPTIC IMPOSSIBLE.
mightiest man had the largest axe, and the axe thus
became the symbol of the mightiest man. As he, by
reason of the oft-told narrative of his doughty deeds
at the prehistoric camp fire at eventide, in course of
time passed from the rank of a hero to that of a god,
the axe likewise passed from being the symbol of a
hero to that of a god. Far away back in the early
dawn of civilization in Egypt, the object which I
identify as an axe may have had some other significa-
tion, but if it had, it was lost long before the period
of the rule of the dynasties in that country.
Passing now to the consideration of the meaning of
the name for God, neter, we find that great diversity
of opinion exists among Egyptologists on the subject.
Some) taking the view that the equivalent of the word
exists in Coptic, under the form of Nuti, and because
Coptic is an ancient Egyptian dialect, have sought to
deduce its meaning by seeking in that language for the
root from which the word may be derived. But all
such attempts have had no good result, because the
word Nuti stands by itself, and instead of being de-
rived from a Coptic root is itself the equivalent of the
Egyptian neter,1 and was taken over by the translators
of the Holy Scriptures from that language to express
the words " God " and " Lord." The Coptic root nomti
cannot in any way be connected with nuti, and the
attempt to prove that the two are related was only
1 The letter r has dropped out in Coptic through phonetic decay.
THE MEANING OF NETER. 5
made with the view of helping to explain the funda-
mentals of the Egyptian religion by means of Sanskrit
and other Aryan analogies. It is quite possible that
the word neter means "strength," "power," and the
like, but these are only some of its derived meanings,
and we have to look in the hieroglyphic inscriptions
for help in order to determine its most probable mean-
ing. The eminent French Egyptologist, E. de Eouge,
connected the name of God, neter, with the other word
neter, " renewal " or " renovation," and it would, accord-
ing to his view, seem as if the fundamental idea of
God was that of the Being who had the power to renew
himself perpetually — or in other words, " self-existence."
The late Dr. H. Brugsch partly accepted this view, for
he defined neter as being "the active power which
produces and creates things in regular recurrence ;
which bestows new life upon them, and gives back to
them their youthful vigour."1 There seems to be no
doubt that, inasmuch as it is impossible to find any
one word which will render neter adequately and
satisfactorily, " self-existence " and " possessing the
power to renew life indefinitely," may together be
taken as the equivalent of neter in our own tongue.
M. Maspero combats rightly the attempt to make
" strong " the meaning of neter (masc.), or neterit (fern.)
in these words : " In the expressions ' a town neterit
'an arm ncteri,' ... is it certain that 'a strong city/
1 Eeligion und Mythologie, p. 93.
6 THE MEANING OF NETER.
'a strong arm/ give us the primitive sense of neteri
When among ourselves one says 'divine music/ 'a
piece of divine poetry/ ' the divine taste of a peach/
' the divine beauty of a woman/ [the word] divine is a
hyperbole, but it would be a mistake to declare that it
originally meant 'exquisite' because in the phrases
which I have imagined one could apply it as ' exquisite
music/ 'a piece of exquisite poetry/ 'the exquisite
taste of a peach/ 'the exquisite beauty of a woman.'
Similarly, in Egyptian, 'a town neterit* is 'a divine
town ; ' ' an arm neteri ' is ' a divine arm/ and neteri is
employed metaphorically in Egyptian as is [the word]
' divine ' in French, without its being any more neces-
sary to attribute to [the word] neteri the primitive
meaning of 'strong/ than it is to attribute to [the
word] 'divine' the primitive meaning of ' exquisite.'" x
It may be, of course, that neter had another meaning
which is now lost, but it seems that the great difference
between God and his messengers and created things is
that he is the Being who is self-existent and immortal,
whilst they are not self-existent and are mortal.
Here it will be objected by those who declare that
the ancient Egyptian idea of God is on a level with
that evolved by peoples and tribes who stand com-
paratively little removed from very intelligent animals,
that such high conceptions as self-existence and im-
mortality belong to a people who are already on a
1 La Mythologie figyptienne, p. 215.
PRIMITIVE IDEA OF GOD. /
high grade of development and civilization. This is
precisely the case with the Egyptians when we first
know them. As a matter of fact, we know nothing
of their ideas of God before they developed sufficiently
to build the monuments which we know they built,
and before they possessed the religion, and civilization,
and complex social system which their writings have
revealed to us. In the remotest prehistoric times it
is probable that their views about God and the future
life were little better than those of the savage tribes,
now living, with whom some have compared them.
The primitive god was an essential feature of the
family, and the fortunes of the god varied with the
fortunes of the family; the god of the city in which
a man lived was regarded as the ruler of the city, and
the people of that city no more thought of neglecting
to provide him with what they considered to be due
to his rank and position than they thought of neglecting
to supply their own wants. In fact the god of the
city became the centre of the social fabric of that city,
and every inhabitant thereof inherited automatically
certain duties, the neglect of which brought stated
pains and penalties upon him. The remarkable
peculiarity of the Egyptian religion is that the
primitive idea of the god of the city is always cropping
up in it, and that is the reason why we find semi-
savage ideas of God side by side with some of the
most sublime conceptions, and it of course underlies
8 EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF NETER.
all the legends of the gods wherein they possess all
the attributes of men and women. The Egyptian in
his semi-savage state was neither better nor worse
than any other man in the same stage of civilization,
but he stands easily first among the nations in his
capacity for development, and in his ability for evolving
conceptions concerning God and the future life, which
are claimed as the peculiar product of the cultured
nations of our time.
We must now, however, see how the word for God,
neter, is employed in religious texts and in works
which contain moral precepts. In the text of Unas,1
a king who reigned about B.C. 3300, we find the
passage : — " That which is sent by thy ka cometh to
thee, that which is sent by thy father cometh to thee,
that which is sent by Ea cometh to thee, and it
arriveth in the train of thy Ea. Thou art pure, thy
bones are the gods and the goddesses of heaven, thou
existest at the side of God, thou art unfastened, thou
comest forth towards thy soul, for every evil word
(or thing) which hath been written in the name of
Unas hath been done away." And, again, in the text
of Teta,2 in the passage which refers to the place in
the eastern part of heaven " where the gods give birth
unto themselves, where that to which they give birth
is born, and where they renew their youth," it is
said of this king, "Teta standeth up in the form of
1 EJ Maspcro, Pyramidet deSaqqarali, p. 25. * llitl., p. 113.
EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF NETER. 9
the star ... he weigheth words (or trieth deeds), and
behold God hearkeneth unto that which he saith."
Elsewhere l in the same text we read, " Behold, Teta
hath arrived in the height of heaven, and the henmemet
beings have seen him ; the Semketet 2 boat knoweth
him, and it is Teta who saileth it, and the Mantchet 3
boat calleth unto him, and it is Teta who bringeth
it to a standstill. Teta hath seen his body in the
Semketet boat, he knoweth the uraeus which is in the
Mantchet boat, and God hath called him in his name
. . . and hath taken him in to Ea." And again 4 we
have : " Thou hast received the form (or attribute) of
God, and thou hast become great therewith before the
gods"; and of Pepi I., who reigned about B.C. 3000,
it is said, " This Pepi is God, the son of God." 5
Now in these passages the allusion is to the supreme
Being in the next world, the Being who has the
power to invoke and to obtain a favourable reception
for the deceased king by Ea, the Sun-god, the type
and symbol of God. It may, of course, be urged that
the word neter here refers to Osiris, but it is not
customary to speak of this god in such a way in the
texts ; and even if we admit that it does, it only shows
that the powers of God have been attributed to Osiris,
and that lie was believed to occupy the position in
1 Ed. Maspero, Pyrnmides de Saqqnrah, p. 111.
* The morning boat of the sun. * The evening boat of the sun.
4 Ibid., p. 150. • Hid., p. 222.
10 PRECEPTS OF KAQEMNA.
respect of Ra and the deceased which the supreme
Being himself occupied. In the last two extracts
given above we might read " a god " instead of " God,"
but there is no object in the king receiving the form
or attribute of a nameless god ; and unless Pepi becomes
the son of God, the honour which the writer of that
text intends to ascribe to the king becomes little and
even ridiculous.
Passing from religious texts to works containing
moral precepts, we find much light thrown upon the
idea of God by the writings of the early sages of
Egypt. First and foremost among these are the
"Precepts of Kaqemna" and the "Precepts of Ptah-
hetep," works which were composed as far back as
B.C. 3000. The oldest copy of them which we possess
is, unfortunately, not older than B.C. 2500, but this
fact in no way affects our argument. These "precepts "
are intended to form a work of direction and guidance
for a young man in the performance of his duty
towards the society in which he lived and towards
his God. It is only fair to say that the reader will
look in vain in them for the advice which is found
in writings of a similar character composed at a later
period; but as a work intended to demonstrate the
" whole duty of man " to the youth of the time when
the Great Pyramid was still a new building, these
"precepts " are very remarkable. The idea of God held
by Ptah-hetep is illustrated by the following passages : —
IDEA OF GOD IN DYNASTIC TIMES. II
1. " Thou shalt make neither man nor woman to be
afraid, for God is opposed thereto; and if any man
shall say that he will live thereby, He will make him
to want bread."
2. " As for the nobleman who possesseth abundance
of goods, he may act according to his own dictates;
and he may do with himself that which he pleaseth ;
if he will do nothing at all, that also is as he pleaseth.
The nobleman by merely stretching out his hand doeth
that which mankind (or a person) cannot attain to ;
but inasmuch as the eating of bread is according to
the plan of God, this cannot be gainsaid."
3. "If thou hast ground to till, labour in the field
which God hath given thee ; rather than fill thy mouth
with that which belongeth to thy neighbours it is
better to terrify him that hath possessions [to give
them unto thee]."
4. " If thou abasest thyself in the service of a perfect
man, thy conduct shall be fair before God."
5. " If thou wouldst be a wise man, make thou thy
son to be pleasing unto God."
6. "Satisfy those who depend upon thee as far as
thou art able so to do ; this should be done by those
whom God hath favoured."
7. " If, having been of no account, thou hast become
great ; and if, having been poor, thou hast become rich :
and if thou hast become governor of the city, be not
hard-hearted on account of thy advancement, because
12 MAXIMS OF KHENSU-HETEP.
thou hast become merely the guardian of the things
which God hath provided."
8 '* What is loved of God is obedience ; God hateth
disobedience."
9. " Verily a good son is of the gifts of God." l
The same idea of God, but considerably amplified
in some respects, may be found in the Maxims of
Khensu-hetep, a work which was probably composed
during the XVIIIth dynasty. This work has been
studied in detail by a number of eminent Egyptologists,
and though considerable difference of opinion has
existed among them in respect of details and gram-
matical niceties, the general sense of the maxims has
been clearly established. To illustrate the use of the
word neter, the following passages have been chosen
from it : a —
1. " God magnifieth his name."
2. " What the house of God hateth is much speaking.
Pray thou with a loving heart all the petitions which
are in secret. He will perform thy business, he will
hear that which thou sayest and will accept thine
offerings."
3. "Goddecreeth the right."
1 The text was published by Prisse d'Avennes, entitled Facsimile
d'un papyrus Egyptien en caracteren hferatiques, Paris, 1847. For a
translation of the whole work, see Virey, Eludes sur le Papyrus Pr<sse,
Paris, 1887.
* They are given with interlinear transliteration and translation
in my Papyrus of Ani, p. Ixxxv. ff., where references to the older
literature on the subject will be found.
GOD AND "GODS." Ij
4 " When thou makest an offering unto thy God,
guard thou against the things which are an abomination
unto him. Behold thou his plans with thine eye, and
devote thyself to the adoration of his name. He giveth
souls unto millions of forms, and him that magnifieth
him doth he magnify."
5. " If thy mother raise her hands to God he will
hear her prayers [and rebuke thee]."
7. " Give thyself to God, and keep thou thyself daily
for God."
Now, although the above passages prove the exalted
idea which the Egyptians held of the supreme Being,
they do not supply us with any of the titles and
epithets which they applied to him ; for these we must
have recourse to the fine hymns and religious medita-
tions which form so important a part of the " Book of
the Dead." But before we quote from them, mention
must be made of the neteru, i.e., the beings or exist-
ences which in some way partake of the nature or
character of God, and are usually called " gods." The
early nations that came in contact with the Egyptians
usually misunderstood the nature of these beings, and
several modern Western writers have done the same.
When we examine these " gods " closely, they are found
to be nothing more nor less than forms, or manifesta-
tions, or phases, or attributes, of one god, that god
being Ea the Sun-god, who, it must be remembered,
was the type and symbol of God. Nevertheless, the
14 MONOTHEISM AND POLYTHEISM.
worship of the neteru by the Egyptians has been made
the base of the charge of " gross idolatry " which has
been brought against them, and they have been repre-
sented by some as being on the low intellectual level
of savage tribes. It is certain that from the earliest
times one of the greatest tendencies of the Egyptian
religion was towards monotheism, and this tendency
may be observed in all important texts down to the
latest period ; it is also certain that a kind of poly-
theism existed in Egypt side by side with monotheism
from very early times. Whether monotheism or poly-
theism be the older, it is useless in our present
state of knowledge to attempt to enquire. According
to Tiele, the religion of Egypt was at the beginning
polytheistic, but developed in two opposite directions :
in the one direction gods were multiplied by the
addition of local gods, and in the other the Egyptians
drew nearer and nearer to monotheism.1 Dr. Wiede-
mann takes the view that three main elements may be
recognized in the Egyptian religion : (1) A solar mono-
theism, that is to say one god, the creator of the
universe, who manifests his power especially in -the
sun and its operations ; (2) A cult of the regenerating
power of nature, which expresses itself in the adoration
of ithyphallic gods, of fertile goddesses, and of a series
1 Geschiedenis van den Godsdiemt in de Oudheid, Amsterdam, 1893,
p. 25. A number of valuable remarks on this subject are given by
Lieblein in Egyptian Religion, p. 10.
GOD AND THE GOD OF THE CITY. 15
of animals and of various deities of vegetation ; (3) A
perception of an anthropomorphic divinity, the life of
whom in this world and in the world beyond this was
typical of the ideal life of man1 — this last divinity
being, of course, Osiris. But here again, as Dr. Wiede-
mann says, it is an unfortunate fact that all the texts
which we possess are, in respect of the period of the
origin of the Egyptian religion, comparatively late, and
therefore in them we find these three elements mixed
together, along with a number of foreign matters, in
such a way as to make it impossible to discover which
of them is the oldest. No better example can be given
of the loose way in which different ideas about a god
and God are mingled in the same text than the
"Negative Confession" in the hundred and twenty-fifth
chapter of the Book of the Dead. Here, in the oldest
copies of the passages known, the deceased says, "I have
not cursed God " (1. 38), and a few lines after (1. 42) he
adds, " I have not thought scorn of the god living in
my city." It seems that here we have indicated two
different layers of belief, and that the older is repre-
sented by the allusion to the "god of the city," in
which case it would go back to the time when the
Egyptian lived in a very primitive fashion. If we
assume that God (who is mentioned in line 38) is
Osiris, it does not do away with the fact that he was
regarded as a being entirely different from the " god of
1 Le Livre des Moris (Review in Musfon, Tom. xiii. 1893).
1 6 JUVENAL ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
the city " and that he was of sufficient importance to
have one line of the " Confession " devoted to him.
The Egyptian saw no incongruity in setting references
to the "gods" side by side with allusions to a god
whom we cannot help identifying with the Supreme
Being and the Creator of the world; his ideas and
beliefs have, in consequence, been sadly misrepresented,
and by certain writers he has been made an object of
ridicule. What, for example, could be a more foolish
description of Egyptian worship than the following?
" Who knows not, 0 Volusius of Bithynia, the sort of
monsters Egypt, in her infatuation, worships. One
part venerates the crocodile; another trembles before
an ibis gorged with serpents. The image of a sacred
monkey glitters in gold, where the magic chords sound
from Memnon broken in half, and ancient Thebes lies
buried in ruins, with her hundred gates. In one place
they venerate sea-fish, in another river-fish ; there,
whole towns worship a dog: no one Diana. It is an
impious act to violate or break with the teeth a leek
or an onion. 0 holy nations ! whose gods grow for
them in their gardens ! Every table abstains from
animals that have wool : it is a crime there to kill a
kid. But human flesh is lawful food." l
1 Juvenal, Satire XV. (Evans' translation in Bonn's Series, p. 180).
Led astray by Juvenal, our own good George Herbert (Church
Militant) wrote : —
" At first he (i.e., Sin) got to Egypt, and did sow
Gardens of gods, which every year did grow
HYMN TO THE NILE-GOD. IJ
The epithets which the Egyptians applied to their
gods also bear valuable testimony concerning the ideas
which they held about God. We have already said
that the "gods" are only forms, manifestations, and
phases of Ea, the Sun-god, who was himself the type
and symbol of God, and it is evident from the nature
of these epithets that they were only applied to the
"gods" because they represented some quality or
attribute which they would have applied to God had
it been their custom to address Him. Let us take as
examples the epithets which are applied to Hapi the
god of the Nile. The beautiful hymn1 to this god
opens as follows : —
" Homage to thee, 0 Hapi ! Thou comest forth in
this land, and dost come in peace to make Egypt to
live, 0 thou hidden one, thou guide of the darkness
whensoever it is thy pleasure to be its guide. Thou
waterest the fields which Ea hath created, thou makest
all animals to live, thou makest the land to drink
Fresh and fine deities. They were at great cost,
Who for a god clearly a Ballet lost.
Ah, what a thing is man devoid of grace,
Adoring garlic with an humble face,
Begging his food of that which he may eat,
Starving the while he worshippeth his meat !
Who makes a root his god, how low is he,
If God and man be severed infinitely !
What wretchedness can give him any room,
Whose house is foul, while he adores his broom?
1 The whole hymn has been published by Maspero in Uymne an
Kil, Paiis,1868.
C
18 HAPI AS PTAH AND KHNEMU.
without ceasing; thou descendest the path of heaven,
thou art the friend of meat and drink, thou art the
giver of the grain, and thou makest every place of
work to flourish, 0 Ptah ! . . . If thou wert to be
overcome in heaven the gods would fall down head-
long, and mankind would perish. Thou makest the
whole earth to be opened (or ploughed up) by the
cattle, and prince and peasant lie down to rest. . . .
His disposition (or form) is that of Khnemu; when
he shineth upon the earth there is rejoicing, for all
people are glad, the mighty man (?) re.ceiveth his meat,
and every tooth hath food to consume."
After praising him for what he does for mankind
and beasts, and for making the herb to grow for the
use of all men, the text says : —
" He cannot be figured in stone ; he is not to be seen
in the sculptured images upon which men place the
united crowns of the South and the North furnished
with uraei; neither works nor offerings can be made
to him; and he cannot be made to come forth
from his secret place. The place where he liveth is
unknown ; he is not to be found in inscribed shrines ;
there existeth no habitation which can contain him;
and thou canst not conceive his form in thy heart."
First we notice that Hapi is addressed by the names
of Ptah and Khnemu, not because the writer thought
these three gods were one, but because Hapi as the
great supplier of water to Egypt became, as it were,
THE UNITY OF GOD. 19
a creative god like Ptah and Khnemu. Next we see
that it is stated to be impossible to depict him in
paintings, or even to imagine what his form may be,
for he is unknown and his abode cannot be found, and
no place can contain him. But, as a matter of fact,
several pictures and sculptures of Hapi have been pre-
served, and we know that he is generally depicted in
the form of two gods ; one has upon his head a papyrus
plant, and the other a lotus plant, the former being the
Nile-god of the South, and the latter the Nile-god of
the North. Elsewhere he is portrayed in the form
of a large man having the breasts of a woman. It
is quite clear, then, that the epithets which we have
quoted are applied to him merely as a form of God.
In another hymn, which was a favourite in the XVIIIth
and XlXth dynasties, Hapi is called " One," and is said
to have created himself; but as he is later on in the
text identified with Ea the epithets which belong to
the Sun-god are applied to him. The late Dr. H.
Brugsch collected1 a number of the epithets which
are applied to the gods, from texts of all periods;
and from these we may see that the ideas and beliefs
of the Egyptians concerning God were almost identical
with those of the Hebrews and Muhammadans at
later periods. When classified these epithets read
thus : —
"God is One and alone, and none other existeth
1 Religion und Mytliologie, pp. 96-99.
20 ATTRIBUTES OF GOD DESCRIBED.
with Him ; Gpd is the One, the One Who hath made
all things.
" God is a spirit, a hidden spirit, the spirit of spirits,
the great spirit of the Egyptians, the divine spirit.
" God is from the beginning, and He hath been from
the beginning; He hath existed from of old and was
when nothing else had being. He existed when nothing
else existed, and what existeth He created after He
had come into being. He is the father of beginnings.
"God is the eternal One, He is eternal and infinite;
and endureth for ever and aye ; He hath endured for
countless ages, and He shall endure to all eternity.
" God is the hidden Being, and no man hath known
His form. No man hath been able to seek out His
likeness; He is hidden from gods and men, and He
is a mystery unto His creatures.
"No man kuoweth how to know Him. His name
remaineth hidden; His name is a mystery unto.His
children. His names are innumerable, they are mani-
fold and none knoweth their number.
"God is truth, and He liveth by truth, and He
feedeth thereon. He is the King of truth, He resteth
upon truth, He fashioneth truth, and He executeth
truth throughout all the world.
" God is life, and through Him only , man liveth.
He giveth life to man, and He breatheth the breath
of life into his nostrils.
" God is father and mother, the father of fathers,
GOD THE CREATOR AND FATHER. 21
and the mother of mothers. He begetteth, but was
never begotten ; He produceth, but was never produced
He begat Himself and produced Himself. He createth,
but was never created ; He is the maker of His own
form, and the fashioner of His own body.
" God Himself is existence, He liveth in all things,
and liveth upon all things. He endureth without in-
crease or diminution, He multiplieth Himself millions
of times, and He possesseth multitudes of forms and
multitudes of members.
" God hath made the universe, and He hath created
all that therein is : He is the Creator of what is in this
world, of what was, of what is, and of what shall be.
He is the Creator of the world, and it was He Who
fashioned it with His hands before there was any
beginning ; and He stablished it with that which went
forth from Him. He is the Creator of the heavens and
the earth ; the Creator of the heavens, and the earth,
and the deep ; the Creator of the heavens, and the
earth, and the deep, and the waters, and the mountains.
God hath stretched out the heavens and founded the
earth. What His heart conceived came to pass straight-
way, and when He had spoken His word came to pass,
and it shall endure for ever.
" God is the father of the gods, and the father of the
father of all deities ; He made His voice to sound, and
the deities came into being, and the gods sprang into
existence after He had spoken with His mouth. He
22 THE HIDDEN GOD AND HIS SYMBOL.
formed mankind and fashioned the gods. He is the
great Master, the primeval Potter Who turned men
and gods out of His hands, and He formed men and
gods upon a potter's table.
"The heavens rest upon His head, and the earth
supporteth His feet ; heaven hidefh His spirit, the
earth hideth His form, and the underworld shutteth
up the mystery of Him within it. His body is like
the air, heaven resteth upon His head, and the new
inundation [of the Nile] containeth His form.
" God is merciful unto those who reverence Him,
and He heareth him that calleth upon Him. He
protecteth the weak against the strong, and He heareth
the cry of him that is bound in fetters ; He judgeth
between the mighty and the weak. God knoweth him
that knoweth Him, He rewardeth him that serveth
Him, and He protecteth him that folio weth Him."
We have now to consider the visible emblem, and
the type and symbol of God, namely the Sun-god Ea,
who was worshipped in Egypt in prehistoric times.
According to the writings of the Egyptians, there was
a time when neither heaven nor earth existed, and
when nothing had being except the boundless primeval x
water, which was, however, shrouded with thick dark-
ness. In this condition the primeval water remained for
a considerable time, notwithstanding that it contained
within it the germs of the things which afterwards
1 See Brugsch, Beligion, p. 101.
THE CREATION. . 23
caine into existence in this world, and the world
itself. At length the spirit of the primeval water felt
the desire for creative activity, and having uttered
the word, the world sprang straightway into being in
the form which had already been depicted in the mind
of the spirit before he spake the word which resulted
in its creation. The next act of creation was the form-
ation of a germ, or egg, from which sprang Ea, the
Sun-god, within whose shining form was embodied the
almighty power of the divine spirit.
Such was the outline of creation as described by the
late Dr. H. Brug&ch, and it is curious to see how
closely his views coincide with a chapter in the
Papyrus of Nesi Amsu preserved in the British
Museum.1 In the third section of this papyrus we
find a work which was written with the sole object of
overthrowing Apep, the great enemy of Ea, and in
the composition itself we find two versions of the
chapter which describes the creation of the earth and
all things therein. The god Neb-er-tcher is the
speaker, and he says : —
"I evolved the evolving of evolutions. I evolved
myself under the form of the evolutions of the god
Khepera, which were evolved at the beginning of all
time. I evolved with the evolutions of the god
Khepera; I evolved by the evolution of evolutions —
1 No. 10,188. See my transcript and translation of the whole
papyrus in Archxologia, vol. 52, London, 1891.
24 THE PRIMEVAL TRINITY.
that is to say, I developed myself from the primeval
matter which I made, I developed myself out of the
primeval matter. My name is Ausares (Osiris), the
germ of primeval matter. I have wrought my will
wholly in this earth, I have spread abroad and filled
it, I have strengthened it [with] my hand. I was
alone, for nothing had been brought forth ; I had not
then emitted from myself either Shu or Tefnut. I
uttered my own name, as a word of power, from my
own mouth, and I straightway evolved myself. I
evolved myself under the form of the evolutions of
the god Khepera, and I developed myself out of the
primeval matter which has evolved multitudes of
evolutions from the beginning of time. Nothing ex-
isted on this earth then, and I made all things. There
was none other who worked with me at that time.
I performed all evolutions there by means of that
divine Soul which I fashioned there, and which had
remained inoperative in the watery abyss. I found
no place there whereon to stand. But I was strong
in my heart, and I made a foundation for myself, and
I made everything which was made. I was alone. I
made a foundation for my heart (or will), and I created
multitudes of things which evolved themselves like
unto the evolutions of the god Khepera, and their
offspring came into being from the evolutions of their
births. I emitted from myself the gods Shu and
Tefnut, and from being One I became Three; they
THE CREATION.
The god Nu rising out of the primeval water and bearing in his bands the boat of Ra,
the Stm-jiod, who is accompanied by a number of deities. In the upper portion of the
pct-ne is the region of the underworld which is enclosed by the body of Osiris, on whose
head stands the goddess Nut \siih arms stretched out to receive the disk of the sun.
BIRTH OF GODS OF THE OSIRIS CYCLE. 2/
sprang from me, and came into existence in this earth.
. . . Shu and Tefnut brought forth Seb and Nut, and
Nut brought forth Osiris, Horus-khent-an-maa, Sut,
Isis, and Nephthys at one birth."
The fact of the existence of two versions of this
remarkable Chapter proves that the composition is
much older than the papyrus1 in which it is found,
and the variant readings which occur in each make
it certain that the Egyptian scribes had difficulty in
understanding what they were writing. It may be
said that this version of the cosmogony is incomplete,
because it does not account for the origin of any of
the gods except those who belong to the cycle of Osiris,
and this objection is a valid one ; but in this place we
are only concerned to shew that Ra, the Sun-god, was
evolved from the primeval abyss of water by the agency
of the god Khepera, who brought this result about by
pronouncing his own name. The great cosmic gods,
such as Ptah and Khnemu, of whom mention will be
made later, are the offspring of another set of religious
views, and the cosmogony in which these play the
leading parts is entirely different. We must notice,
in passing, that the god whose words we have quoted
above declares that he evolved himself under the form
of Khepera, and that his name is Osiris, " the primeval
matter of primeval matter," and that, as a result, Osiris
is identical with Khepera in respect of his evolutions
1 About B.C. 300.
28 CREATION OF MEN AND WOMEN.
and new births. The word rendered " evolutions " is
Jcheperu, literally " rollings " ; and that rendered " pri-
meval matter" is paut, the original "stuff" out of
which everything was made. In both versions we
are told that men and women came into being from
the tears which fell from the " Eye " of Khepera, that
is to say from the Sun, which, the god says, " I made
take to up its place in my face, and afterwards it ruled
the whole earth."
We have seen how Ea has become the visible type
and symbol of God, and the creator of the world and
of all that is therein ; we may now consider the
position which he held with respect to the dead. As
far back as the period of the IVth dynasty, about
B.C. 3700, he was regarded as the great god of heaven,
and the king of all the gods, and divine beings, and
of the beatified dead who dwelt therein. The position
of the beatified in heaven is decided by Ea, and of all
the gods there Osiris only appears to have the power
to claim protection for his followers; the offerings
which the deceased would make to Ea are actually
presented to him by Osiris. At one time the Egyptian's
greatest hope seems to have been that he might not
only become " God, the son of God," by adoption, but
that Ea would become actually his father. For in the
text of Pepi I.,1 it is said : " Pepi is the son of Ea who
loveth him; and he goeth forth and raiseth himself
1 Ed. Maspero, line 576.
RA THE HEAD OF THE GODS. 29
up to heaven. Ea hath begotten Pepi, and he goeth
forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. Ea hath con-
ceived Pepi, and he goeth forth and raiseth himself
up to heaven. Ea hath given birth to Pepi, and he
goeth forth and raiseth himself up to heaven." Sub-
stantially these ideas remained the same from the
earliest to the latest times, and Ea maintained his
position as the great head of the companies, notwith-
standing the rise of Amen into prominence, and the
attempt to make Aten the dominant god of Egypt by
the so-called " Disk worshippers." The following good
typical examples of Hymns to Ea are taken from the
oldest copies of the Theban Eecension of the Book of
the Dead.
I. FROM THE PAPYRUS OF ANI.J
" Homage to thee, O thou who hast come as Khepera,
Khepera the creator of the gods. Thou risest and
thou shinest, and thou makest light to be in thy
mother Nut (i.e., the sky) ; thou art crowned king of
the gods. Thy mother Nut doeth an act of homage
unto thee with both her hands. The land of Manu
(i.e., the land where the sun sets) receiveth thee with
satisfaction, and the goddess Maat embraceth thee
bo.th at morn and at eve.2 Hail, all ye gods of the
1 See 77(e Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 3.
2 J.e., Maat, the goddess of law, order, regularity, and tho like, maketh
the sun to rise each day in his appointed place and at his appointed
time with absolute and unfailing regularity.
3C HYMN TO RA (ABOUT B.C. IS 50).
Temple of the Soul,1 who weigh heaven and earth in
the balance, and who provide divine food in abundance !
Hail, Tatunen, thou One, thou Creator of mankind and
Maker of the substance of the gods of the south and
of the north, of the west and of the east ! 0 come ye
and acclaim Ea, the lord of heaven and the Creator of
the gods, and adore ye him in his beautiful form as
he cometh in the morning in his divine bark.
"0 Ea, those who dwell in the heights and those
who dwell in the depths adore thee. The god Thoth
and the goddess Maat have marked out for thee [thy
course] for each and every day. Thine enemy the
Serpent bath been given over to the fire, the serpent-
fiend Sebau hath fallen down headlongj his arms have
been bound in chains, and thou hast hacked off his
legs ; and the sons of impotent revolt shall nevermore
rise up against thee. The Temple of the Aged One 2
(i.e., Ea) keepeth festival, and the voice of those who
rejoice is in the mighty dwelling. The gods exult
when they see thy rising, O Ea, and when thy beams
flood the world with light. The Majesty of the holy
god goeth forth and advanceth even unto the land of
Manu ; he maketh brilliant the earth at his birth each
day ; he journeyeth on to the place where he was
yesterday."
1 I.e., the soul referred to above in the account of the creation;
BCC p. 24.
2 I.e., Ra of Heliopolis.
HYMN TO RA (ABOUT B.C. 1350). 31
II. FROM THE PAPYRUS OF HUNEFER.*
"Homage to thee, O thou who art Ea when thou
risest and Temu when thou settest. Thou risest, thou
risest, thou shinest, thou shinest, O thou who art
crowned king of the gods. Thou art the lord of
heaven, thou art the lord of earth; thou art the
creator of those who dwell in the heights, and of those
who dwell in the depths. Thou art the One God who
came into being in the beginning of time. Thou didst
create the earth, thou didst fashion man, thou didst
make the watery abyss of the sky, thou didst form
Hapi (i.e., the Nile), thou didst create the great deep,
and thou dost give life unto all that therein is. Thou
hast knit together the mountains, thou hast made
mankind and the beasts of the field to come into beino-
O'
thou hast made the heavens and the earth. Wor-
shipped be thou whom the goddess Maat embraceth at
morn and at eve. Thou dost travel across the sky
with thy heart swelling with joy; the great deep of
heaven is content thereat. The serpent-fiend Nak 2
hath fallen, and his arms are cut o£L The Sektet3
boat receiveth fair winds, and the heart of him that
is in the shrine thereof rejoiceth.
" Thou art crowned Prince of heaven, and thou art
1 From the Papyrus of Hnnefer (Brit. Mus. No. 9901).
8 A name of the serpent of darkness which Ea slew duily.
* The boat in which Ra sailed from noon to sunset.
32 IDENTIFICATION OF AMEN WITH RA.
the One [dowered with all sovereignty] who appearest
in the sky. Ea is he who is true of voice.1 Hail,
thou divine youth, thou heir of everlastingness, thou
self-begotten One ! Hail, thou who didst give thyself
birth! Hail, One, thou mighty being, of myriad
forms and aspects, thou king of the world, prince of
Annu (Heliopolis), lord of eternity, and ruler of ever-
lastingness ! The company of the gods rejoice when
thou risest and dost sail across the sky, 0 thou who
art exalted in the Sektet boat."
" Homage to thee, 0 Amen-Ea,2 who dost rest upon
Maat ; 3 thou passest over heaven and every face seeth
thee. Thou dost wax great as thy Majesty doth
advance, and thy rays are upon all faces. Thou art
unknown, and no tongue can declare thy likeness ;
thou thyself alone [canst do this]. Thou art One . . .
Men praise thee in thy name, and they swear by thee,
for thou art lord over them. Thou hearest with thine
ears, and thou seest with thine eyes. Millions of years
have gone over the world. I cannot tell the number
of those through which thou hast passed. Thy heart
hath decreed a day of happiness in thy name of
' Traveller/ Thou dost pass over and dost travel
through untold spaces [requiring] millions and hundreds
1 I.e., whatsoever Ra commandeth taketb place straightway ; see
the Chapter on the Judgment of the Dead, p. 110.
2 On the god Amen, see the chapter, " The Gods of the Egyptians."
3 I.e., " thy existence, and thy risings and settings are ordered and
defined by fixed, unchanging, and unalterable law."
HYMN AND PRAYER TO RA (ABOUT B.C. I55<3). 33
of thousands of years [to pass over] ; thou passest
through them in peace, and thou steerest thy way
across the watery abyss to the place which thou
lovest; this thou doest in one little moment of time,
and then thou dost sink down and dost make an end
of the hours."
III. FROM THE PAPYRUS OF ANLI
The following beautiful composition, part hymn and
part prayer, is of exceptional interest
" Hail, thou Disk, thou lord of rays, who risest on
the horizon day by day ! Shine thou with thy beams
of light upon the face of Osiris Ani, who is true of
voice ; for he singeth hymns of praise unto thee at
dawn, and he maketh thee to set at eventide with
words of adoration. May the soul of Ani come forth
with thee into heaven, may he go forth in the Matet
boat. May he come into port in the Sektet boat, and
may he cleave his path among the never-resting stars
in the heavens.
"Osiris Ani, being in peace and triumph, adoreth
his lord, the lord of eternity, saying, ' Homage to
thee, 0 Heru-khuti (Harmachis), who art the god
Khepera, the self-created one ; when thou risest on
the horizon and sheddest thy beams of light upon
the lands of the North and of the South, thou art
1 Plate 20.
D
34 PRAYER FOR A RENEWED BODY.
beautiful, yea beautiful, and all the gods rejoice when
they behold thee, the king of heaven. The goddess
Nebt-Unnut is stablished upon thy head ; and her
uraei of the South and of the North are upon thy
brow ; she taketh up her place before thee. The god
Thoth is stablished in the bows of thy boat to destroy
utterly all thy foes. Those who are in the Tuat
(underworld) come forth to meet thee, and they bow
low in homage as they come towards thee, to behold
thy beautiful form. And I have come before thee
that I may be with thee to behold thy Disk each day.
May I not be shut up [in the tomb], may I not be
turned back, may the limbs of my body be made new^
again when I view thy beauties, even as [are those of]
all thy favoured ones, because I am one of those who7
worshipped thee upon earth. May I come unto the
land of eternity, may I come even unto the everlasting
land, for behold, O my lord, this hast thou ordained"
for me.'
" ' Homage to thee, O thou who risest in thy horizon
as Ba, thou restest upon Maat.1 Thou passest over
the sky, and every face watcheth thee and thy course,
for thou hast been hidden from their gaze. Thou
dost show thyself at dawn and at eventide day by
day. The Sektet boat, wherein is thy Majesty, goeth
forth with might ; thy beams are upon [all] faces ;
thy rays of red and yellow cannot be known, and thy
1 I.e., unchanging and unalterable law.
RA THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 35
bright beams cannot be told. The lands of the gods
and the eastern lands of Punt * must be seen ere that
which is hidden [in thee] may be measured.2 Alone
and by thyself thou dost manifest thyself [when] thou
comest into being above Nu. May I advance, even
as thou dost advance; may I never cease [to go
forward], even as thy Majesty ceaseth not [to go
forward], even though it be for a moment; for with
strides dost thou in one brief moment pass over spaces
which [man] would need hundreds of thousands, yea,
millions of years to pass over; [this] thou doest, and
then thou dost sink to rest. Thou puttest an end to
the hours of the night, and thou dost count them, even
thou ; thou endest them in thine own appointed season,
and the earth becometh light. Thou settest thyself
before thy handiwork in the likeness of Ea ; thou
risest in the horizon.'
" Osiris, the scribe Ani, declareth his praise of thee
when thou shinest, and when thou risest at dawn he
crieth in his joy at thy birth, saying : —
" ' Thou art crowned with the majesty of thy beauties ;
thou mouldest thy limbs as thou dost advance, and
thou bringest them forth without birth-pangs in the
form of Ea, as thou dost rise up in the celestial height.
Grant thou that I may come unto the heaven which
1 I.e., the east and west coasts of the Red Sea, and the north-east
coast of Africa.
* I am doubtful about the meaning of this passage.
36 RA THE POWER OF POWERS.
is everlasting, and unto the mountain where dwell thy
favoured ones. May I be joined unto those shining
beings, holy and perfect, who are in the underworld ;
and may I conie forth with them to behold thy beauties
when thou shinest at eventide, and goest to thy mother
Nut Thou dost place thyself in the west, and my
hands adore [thee] when thou settest as a living being.1
Behold, thou art the everlasting creator, and thou art
adored [as such when] thou settest in the heavens.
I have given my heart to thee without wavering, O
thou who art mightier than the gods.'
" A hymn of praise to thee, O thou who risest like
unto gold, and who dost flood the world with light on
the day of thy birth. Thy mother giveth thee birth,
and straightway thou dost give light upon the path
of [thy] Disk, 0 thou great Light who shinest in the
heavens. Thou makest the generations of men to
flourish through the Nile-flood, and thou dost cause
gladness to exist in all lands, and in all cities, and
in all temples. Thou art glorious by reason of thy
splendours, and thou makest strong thy KA (i.e.
Double) with divine foods, 0 thou mighty one of
victories, thou Power of Powers, who dost make strong
thy throne against evil fiends — thou who art glorious
in Majesty in the Sektet boat, and most mighty in
the Atet2 boat!"
1 T.s., " because when thou settest thou dost not die."
* i'uo Sun's evening and morning boats respectively.
HYMN TO RA (ABOUT B.C. HOC). 37
This selection may be fittingly closed by a short
hymn1 which, though of a later date, reproduces in
a brief form all the essentials of the longer hymns
of the XVIIIth dynasty (about B.C. 1700 to 1400).
" Homage to thee, 0 thou glorious Being, thou who
art dowered [with all sovereignty]. O Temu-Harma-
chis,2 when thou risest in the horizon of heaven, a
cry of joy cometh forth to thee from the mouth of
all peoples. O thou beautiful Being, thou dost renew
thyself in thy season in the form of the Disk within
thy mother Hathor;8 therefore in every place every
heart swelleth with joy at thy rising for ever. The
regions of the North and South come to thee with
homage, and send forth acclamations at thy rising
in the horizon of heaven; thou illuminest the two
lands with rays of turquoise light. Hail, Ea, thou
who art Ba-Harmachis, thou divine man-child, heir
of eternity, self-begotten and self-born, king of the
earth, prince of the underworld, governor of the regions
of Aukert (i.e., the underworld) ! Thou didst come
forth from the water, thou hast sprung from the god
Nu, who cherisheth thee and ordereth thy members.
Hail, god of life, thou lord of love, all men live when
thou shinest; thou art crowned king of the gods. The
goddess Nut doeth homage unto thee, and the goddess
1 From the Papyrus of Nekht (Brit. Mns. No. 10,471).
1 The evening and morning sun respectively.
* Like Nnt, a goddess of the sky, but particularly of that portion
of it in which the Bun rises.
38 PRAISES OF RA THE ETERNAL GOD.
Maat embraceth thee at all times. Those who are in
thy following sing unto thee with joy and bow down
their foreheads to the earth when they meet thee,
thou lord of heaven, thou lord of earth, thou king
of Eight and Truth, thou lord of eternity, thou prince
of everlastingness, thou sovereign of all the gods, thou
god of life, thou creator of eternity, thou maker of
heaven, wherein thou art firmly established. The
company of the gods rejoice at thy rising, the earth
is glad when it beholdeth thy rays ; the peoples that
have been long dead come forth with cries of joy to
see thy beauties every day. Thou goest forth each
day over heaven and earth, and art made strong each
day by thy mother Nut. Thou passest through the
heights of heaven, thy heart swelleth with joy; the
abyss of the sky is content thereat. The Serpent-
fiend hath fallen, his arms are hewn off, and the knife
hath cut asunder his joints. Ea liveth in Maat the
beautiful. The Sektet boat draweth on and cometh
into port ; the South and the North, the West and the
East, turn to praise thee, O thou primeval substance of
the earth who didst come into being of thine own
accord. Isis and Nephthys salute thee, they sing unto
thee songs of joy at thy rising in the boat, they
protect thee with their hands. The souls of the East
follow thee, the souls of the West praise thee. Thou
art the ruler of all the gods, and thou hast joy of
heart within thy shrine ; for the Serpent-fiend Nak
RESPECT FOR TRADITIONAL BELIEFS. 39
hath been condemned to the fire, and thy heart shall
be joyful for ever."
From the considerations set forth in the preceding
pages, and from the extracts from religious texts of
various periods, and from the hymns quoted, the
reader may himself judge the views which the ancient
Egyptian held concerning God Almighty and his visible
type and symbol Ea, the Sun-god. Egyptologists differ
in their interpretations of certain passages, but agree
as to general facts. In dealing with the facts it cannot
be too clearly understood that the religious ideas of
the prehistoric Egyptian were very different from _
those of the cultured priest of Memphis in the Ilnd
dynasty, or those of the worshippers of Temu or Atum,
the god of the setting sun, in the IVth dynasty.
The editors of religious texts of all periods have
retained many grossly superstitious and coarse beliefs,
which they knew well to be the products of the imagi-
nations of their savage, or semi-savage ancestors, not
because they themselves believed in them, or thought
that the laity to whom they ministered would accept
them, but because of their reverence for inherited
traditions. The followers of every great religion in
the world have never wholly shaken off all the super-
stitions which they have in all generations inherited
from their ancestors ; and what is true of the peoples
of the past is true, in a degree, of the peoples of
to day. In the East the older the ideas, and beliefs,
40 DEVELOPMENT OF SPIRITUAL CONCEPTIONS.
and traditions are, the more sacred they become; but
this has not prevented men there from developing high
moral and spiritual conceptions and continuing to
believe in them, and among such must be counted
the One, self-begotten, and self-existent God whom the
Egyptians worshipped.
CHAPTER II.
OSIRIS THE GOD OF THE RESURRECTION.
1 7 "I/ ... -
THE Egyptians of every period in which they are
known to us believed that Osiris was of divine origin,
that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands
of the powers of evil, that after a great struggle with
these powers he rose again, that" he became henceforth
the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and
that because he had conquered death the righteous also
might conquer death ; and they raised Osiris to such
an exalted position in heaven that he became the equal
and, in certain cases, the superior of Ea, the Sun-god,
and ascribed to him the attributes which belong unto
"God. Hbwever far back we go, we find that these
views about Osiris are assumed to be known to the
reader of religious texts and accepted by him, and in
the earliest funeral book the position of Osiris in
respect of the other gods is identical with that which
he is made to hold in the latest copies of the Book
of the Dead. The first writers of the ancient hiero-
glyphic funeral texts and their later editors have
42 THE HISTORY OF ISIS AND OSIRIS
assumed so completely that the history of Osiris was
known unto all men, that none of them, as far as we
know, thought it necessary to write down a connected
narrative of the life and sufferings upon earth of this
god, or if they did, it has not come down to us. Even
in the Vth dynasty we find Osiris and the gods of his
cycle, or company, occupying a peculiar and special
place in the compositions written for the benefit of
the dead, and the stone and other monuments which
belong to still earlier periods mention ceremonies the
performance of which assumed the substantial accuracy
of the history of Osiris as made known to us by later
writers. But we have a connected history of Osiris
which, though not written in Egyptian, contains so
much that is of Egyptian origin that we may be sure
that its author drew his information from Egyptian
sources : I refer to the work, De Iside et Osiride, of
the Greek writer, Plutarch, who flourished about the
middle of the first century of our era. In it, unfortu-
nately, Plutarch identifies certain of the Egyptian gods
with the gods of the Greeks, and he adds a number
of statements which rest either upon his own imagina-
tion, or are the results of misinformation. The trans-
lation l by Squire runs as follows : —
" Ehea,2 say they, having accompanied Saturn 8 by
1 Plutarchi de hide et Osiride liber : Grace et Anglice. By S.
Squire, Cambridge, 1744.
I.6., Nut. » I.e., Seb.
THE BIRTH OF OSIRIS. 43
stealth, was discovered by the Sun,1 who hereupon
denounced a curse upon her, ' that she should not be
delivered in any month or year ' — Mercury, however,
being likewise in love with the same goddess, in recom-
pense of the favours which he had received from her,
plays at tables with the Moon, and wins from her the
seventieth part of each of her illuminations; these
several parts, making in the whole five days, he after-
wards joined together, and added to the three hundred
and sixty, of which the year formerly consisted, which
days therefore are even yet called by the Egyptians
the Epact or superadded, and observed by them as the
birthdays of their gods. For upon the first of them,
say they, was OsmiS born, just at whose entrance into
the world a voice was heard, saying, ' The lord of all
the earth is born.' There are some indeed who relate
this circumstance in a different manner, as that a
certain person, named Pamyles, as he was fetching
water from the temple of Jupiter at Thebes, heard a
voice commanding him to proclaim aloud that 'the
good and great king Osiris was then born ' ; and that
for this reason Saturn committed the education of the
child to him, and that in memory of this event the
Pamylia were afterwards instituted, a festival much
resembling the Phalliphoria or Priapeia of the Greeks.
Upon the second of these days was AROUEEIS 2 born,
whom some call Apollo, and othera distinguish by the
1 /.«., r,a. « Ie, Hcru-ur, "Horns the Elder."
44 BIRTH OF SET AND NEPHTHYS.
name of the elder Orus. Upon the third Typho 1 came
into the world, being born neither at the proper time,
nor by the proper place, but forcing his way through
a wound which he had made in his mother's side. Isis
was born upon the fourth of them in the marshes of
Egypt, as NEPTHYS was upon the last, whom some call
Teleute and Aphrodite, and others Nike — Now as
to the fathers of these children, the two first of
them are said to have been begotten by the Sun,
Isis by Mercury, Typho and Nepthys by Saturn;
and accordingly, the third of these superadded days,
because it was looked upon as the birthday of Typho,
was regarded by the kings as inauspicious, and con-
sequently they neither transacted any business on it,
or even suffered themselves to take any refreshment
until the evening. They further add, that Typho
married Nepthys; and that Isis and Osiris, having
a mutual affection, loved each other in their mother's
womb before they were born, and that from this com-
merce sprang Aroueris, whom the Egyptians likewise
call the elder Orus, and the Greeks Apollo.
"Osiris, being now become king of Egypt, applied
himself towards civilizing his countrymen, by turning
them from their former indigent and barbarous course
of life ; he moreover taught them how to cultivate and
improve the fruits of the earth ; he gave them a body
of laws to regulate their conduct by, and instructed
1 i.e., Set.
THE CONSPIRACY OF SET. 45
»
them in that reverence and worship which they were
to pay to the gods. With the same good disposition
he afterwards travelled over the rest of the world
inducing the people everywhere to submit to his
discipline; not indeed compelling them by force of
arms, but persuading them to yield to the strength
of his reasons, which were conveyed to them in the
most agreeable manner, in hymns and songs, accom-
panied by instruments of music: from which last
circumstance the Greeks conclude him to have been
the same with their Dionysius or Bacchus — During
Osiris' absence from his kingdom, Typho had no
opportunity of making any innovations in the state,
Isis being extremely vigilant in the government, and
always upon her guard. After his return, however,
having first persuaded seventy-two other persons to
join with him in the conspiracy, together with a
certain queen of Ethiopia named Aso, who chanced
to be in Egypt at that time, he contrived a proper
stratagem to execute his base designs. For having
privily taken the measure of Osiris' body, he caused
a chest to be made exactly of the same size with it,
as beautiful as may be, and set off with all the orna-
ments of art. This chest he brought into his banquet-
ing-room ; where, after it had been much admired by
all who were present, Typho, as it were in jest, promised
to give it to any one of them whose body upon trial
it might be found to fit. Upon this the whole company,
46 OSIRIS IS TREACHEROUSLY MURDERED.
one after another, go into it; but as it did not fit
any of them, last of all Osiris lays himself down in
it, upon which the conspirators immediately ran
together, clapped the cover upon it, and then fastened
it down on the outside with nails, pouring likewise
melted lead over it. After this they carried it away
to the river side, and conveyed it to the sea by the
Tanaitic mouth of the Nile ; which, for this reason,
is still held in the utmost abomination by the
Egyptians, and never named by them but with proper
marks of detestation. These things, say they, were
thus executed upon the 17th1 day of the month
Athyr, when the sun was in Scorpio, in the 28th year
of Osiris' reign ; though there are others who tell us
that he was no more than 28 years old at this time.
" The first who knew the accident which had befallen
their king were the Pans and Satyrs who inhabited
the country about Chemmis (Panopolis) ; and they
immediately acquainting the people with the news
gave the first occasion to the name Panic Terrors,
which has ever since been made use of to signify any
sudden affright or amazement of a multitude. As to
Isis, as soon as the report reached her she immediately
cut off one of the locks of her hair,2 and put on mourn-
ing apparel upon the very spot where she then
happened to be, which accordingly from this accident
1 In the Egyptian calendar this day was marked triply unlucky.
* The hair cut off as a sign of mourning was usually laid in the
tomb of the dead.
HIS BODY CARRIED TO THE SEA. 47
has ever since been called Koptis, or the city of mourn-
ing, though some are of opinion that this word rather
signifies deprivation. After this she wandered every-
where about the country full of disquietude and per-
plexity in search of the chest, inquiring of every person
she met with, even of some children whom she chanced
to see, whether they knew what was become of it.
Now it happened that these children had seen what
Typho's accomplices had done with the body, and
accordingly acquainted her by what mouth of the Nile
it had been conveyed into the sea — For this reason
therefore the Egyptians look upon children as endued
with a kind of faculty of divining, and in consequence
of this notion are very curious in observing the
accidental prattle which they have with one another
whilst they are at play (especially if it be in a sacred
place), forming omens and presages from it — Isis,
during this interval, having been informed that Osiris,
deceived by her sister Nepthys who was in love with
him, had unwittingly united with her instead of herself,
as she concluded from the melilot-garland,3 which he
had left with her, made it her business likewise to
search out the child, the fruit of this unlawful
commerce (for her sister, dreading the anger of her
husband Typho, had exposed it as soon as it was
born), and accordingly, after much pains and difficulty,
by means of some dogs that conducted her to the place
• /.«., a wreath of clover.
48 ISIS FINDS THE BODY OF OSIRIS
where it was, she found it and bred it up ; so that
in process of time it became her constant guard and
attendant, and from hence obtained the name of Anubis,
being thought to watch and guard the gods, as dogs do
mankind.
" At length she receives more particular news of
the chest, that it had been carried by the waves of the
sea to the coast of Byblos,1 and there gently lodged
in the branches of a bush of Tamarisk, which, in a
short time, had shot up into a large and beautiful tree,
growing round the chest and enclosing it on every side,
so that it was not to be seen ; and farther, that the
king of the country, amazed at its unusual size, had
cut the tree down, and made that part of the trunk
wherein the chest was concealed, a pillar to support
the roof of his house. These things, say they, being
made known to Isis in an extraordinary manner by
the report of Demons, she immediately went to Byblos ;
where, setting herself down by the side of a fountain,
she refused to speak to anybody, excepting only to the
queen's women who chanced to be there ; these indeed
she saluted and caressed in the kindest manner possible,
plaiting their hair for them, and transmitting into them
part of that wonderfully grateful odour which issued
from her own body. This raised a great desire in the
queen their mistress to see the stranger who had this
1 Not the Byblos of Syria (JebSl) but the papyrus swamps of the
Delta.
ISIS TRANSFORMS HERSELF. 49
admirable faculty of transfusing so fragrant a smell
from herself into the hair and skin of other people.
She therefore sent for her to court, and, after a further
acquaintance with her, made her nurse to one of her
sons. Now the name of the king who reigned at this
time at By bios, was Melcarthus, as that of* his queen
was Astarte, or, according to others, Saosis, though
some call her Nemanoun, which answers to the Greek
name Athenais.
"Isis fed the child by giving it her finger to suck
instead of the breast; she likewise put him every
night into the fire in order to consume his mortal
part, whilst transforming herself into a swallow, she
hovered round the pillar and bemoaned her sad fate.
Thus continued she to do for some time, till the queen,
who stood watching her, observing the child to be all
in a flame, cryed out, and thereby deprived him of that
immortality which would otherwise have been con-
ferred upon him. The Goddess upon this, discovering
herself, requested that the pillar, which supported the
roof, might be given her; which she accordingly took
down, and then easily cutting it open, after she had
taken out what she wanted, she wrapped up the re-
mainder of the trunk in fine linnen, and pouring per-
fumed oil upon it, delivered it again into the hands of
the king and queen (which piece of wood is to this,
day preserved in the temple of Isis, and worshipped by
the people of Byblos). When this was done, she threw
£
5O THE MOURNING OF ISIS.
herself upon the chest, making at the same time such
a loud and terrible lamentation over it, as frightened
the younger of the king's sons, who heard her, out of
his life. But the elder of them she took with her
and set sail with the chest for Egypt ; and it being
now about morning, the river Phaedrus sending forth
a rough and sharp air, she in her anger dried up its
current.
"No sooner was she arrived at a desart place, where
she imagined herself to be alone, but she presently
opened the chest, and laying her faco upon her dead
husband's, embraced his corpse, and wept bitterly;
but perceiving that the little boy had silently stolen
behind her, and found out the occasion of her grief,
she turned herself about on the sudden, and in her
anger gave him so fierce and stern a look that he
immediately died of the affright. Others indeed say
that his death did not happen in this manner, but, as
was hinted above, that he fell into the sea, and after-
wards received the greatest honours on account of the
Goddess ; for that the Maneros,1 whom the Egyptians
so frequently call upon in their banquets, is none other
than this very boy. This relation is again contra-
dicted by such as tell us that the true name of the
child was Palaestinus, or Pelusius, and that the city
of this name was built by the Goddess in memory of
1 A son of the fiist Egyptian king, who died iu las early youth;
«ee Hi rodotua. ii. 79.
SET FINDS THE BODY OF OSIRIS. 51
him; adding farther, that the Maneros above men-
tioned is thus honoured by the Egyptians at their
feasts, because he was the first who invented music.
There are others, again, who affirm that Maneros is
not the name of any particular person, but a mere
customary form, and complimental manner of greeting
made use of by the Egyptians one towards another at
their more solemn feasts and banquets, meaning no
more by it, than to wish, that what they were then
about might prove fortunate and happy to them, for
that this is the true import of the word. In like
manner, say they, the human skeleton, which at these
times of jollity is carried about in a box, and shewn to
all the guests, is not designed, as some imagine, to
represent the particular misfortunes of Osiris, but
rather to remind them of their mortality, and thereby
to excite them freely to make use of and to enjoy
the good things which are set before them, seeing they
must quickly become such as they there saw ; and
that this is the true reason of introducing it at their
banquets — but to proceed in the narration.
"Isis intending a visit to her son Orus, who was
brought up at Butus, deposited the chest in the mean-
while in a remote and unfrequented place : Typho
however, as he was one night hunting by the light
of the moon, accidentally met with it; and knowing
the body which was enclosed in it, tore it into several
pieces, fourteen in all, dispersing them up and down
52 THE SEPULCHRES OF OSIRIS.
in different parts of the country — Upon being made
acquainted with this event, Isis once more sets out
in search of the scattered fragments of her husband's
body, making use of a boat made of the reed Papyrus
in order the more easily to pass thro' the lower
and fenny parts of the country — For which reason,
say they, the crocodile never touches any persons, who
sail in this sort of vessels, as either fearing the anger
of the goddess, or else respecting it on account of its
having once carried her. To this occasion therefore
is it to be imputed, that there are so many different
sepulchres of Osiris shewn in Egypt ; for we are told,
that wherever Isis met with any of the scattered limbs
of her husband, she there buried it. There are others
however who contradict this relation, and tell us, that
this variety of Sepulchres was owing rather to the policy
of the queen, who, instead of the real body, as was pre-
tended, presented these several cities with the image
only of her husband : and that she did this," not only to
render the honours, which would by this means be paid
to his memory, more extensive, but likewise that she
might hereby elude the malicious search of Typho;
who, if he got the better of Orus in the war wherein
they were going to be engaged, distracted by this
multiplicity of Sepulchres, might despair of being able
to find the true one — we are told moreover, that not-
withstanding all her search, Isis was never able to
recover the member of Osiris, which having been
RETURN OF OSIRIS FROM THE OTHER WORLD. 53
thrown into the Nile immediately upon its separation
from the rest of the body, had been devoured by the
Lepidotus, the Phagrus, and the Oxyrynchus, fish which
of all others, for this reason, the Egyptians have in
more especial avoidance. In order however to make
some amends for the loss, Isis consecrated the Phallus
made in imitation of it, and instituted a solemn festival
to its memory, which is even to this day observed by
the Egyptians.
" After these things, Osiris returning from the other
world, appeared to his son Orus, encouraged him to the
battle, and at the same time instructed him in the
exercise of arms. He then asked him, ' what he
thought was the most glorious action a man could
perform ? ' to which Orus replied, ' to revenge the
injuries offered to his father and mother.' He then
asked him, ' what animal he thought most serviceable
to a soldier ? ' and being answered ' a horse ' ; this
raised the wonder of Osiris, so that he farther ques-
tioned him, ' why he preferred a horse before a
lion ? ' because, adds Orus, ' tho' the lion be the more
serviceable creature to one who stands in need of
help, yet is the horse l more useful in overtaking and
cutting off a flying adversary.' These replies much
rejoiced Osiris, as they showed him that his son was
*
1 The horse does not appear to have been known in Egypt before
the XVIIIth dynasty ; this portion of Plutarch's version of the history
of Osiris must, then, be later than B.C. 1500.
54 BATTLE BETWEEN SET AND HORUS.
sufficiently prepared for his enemy — We are moreover
told, that among the great numbers who were con-
tinually deserting from Typho's party was his concu-
bine Thueris, and that a serpent pursuing her as she
was coming over to Orus, was slain by her soldiers —
the memory of which action, say they, is still preserved
in that cord which is thrown into the midst of their
assemblies, and then chopt into pieces — Afterwards
it came to a battle between them which lasted many
days; but victory at length inclined to Orus, Typho
himself being taken prisoner. Isis however, to whose
custody he was committed, was so far from putting him
to death, that she even loosed his bonds and set him
a.t liberty. This action of his mother so extremely
incensed Orus, that he laid hands upon her, and pulled
off the ensign of royalty which she wore on her
head ; and instead thereof Hermes clapt on an helmet
made in the shape of an oxe's head — After this,
Typho publicly accused Orus of bastardy ; but by the
assistance of Hermes (Thoth) his legitimacy was fully
established by the judgment of the Gods themselves —
After this, there were two other battles fought between
them, in both of which Typho had the worst. Further-
more, Isis is said to have accompanied with Osiris after
his death, and in consequence hereof to have brought
forth Harpocrates, who came into the world before
his time, and lame in his lower limbs."
When we examine this story by the light of the
EGYPTIAN ACCOUNT OF ISIS AND OSIRIS. 55
results of hieroglyphic decipherment, we find that a
large portion of it is substantiated by Egyptian texts :
e.g., Osiris was the son of Seb and Nut ; the Epact
is known in the Calendars as " the five additional days
of the year " ; the five gods, Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis,
and Nephthys, were born on the days mentioned by
Plutarch; the 17th day of Athyr (Hathor) is marked
as triply unlucky in the Calendars ; the wanderings
and troubles of Isis are described, and " lamentations "
which she is supposed to have uttered are found in
the texts ; lists of the shrines of Osiris are preserved
in several inscriptions ; the avenging of his father by
Horus is referred to frequently in papyri and other
documents; the conflict between Set and Horus is
described fully in a papyrus in the British Museum
(No. 10,184) ; a hymn in the papyrus of Hunefer
relates all that Thoth performed for Osiris; and the
begetting of Horus by Osiris after death is mentioned
in a hymn to Osiris dating from the XVIIIth dynasty
in the following passage : —
" Thy sister put forth her protecting power for thee,
she scattered abroad those who were her enemies, she
drove away evil hap, she pronounced mighty words of
power, she made cunning her tongue, and her words
failed not. The glorious Isis was perfect in command
and in speech, and she avenged her brother. She
sought him without ceasing, she wandered round and
round the earth uttering cries of pain, and she rested
56 ANTIQUITY OF THE WORSHIP OF OSIRIS.
(or alighted) not until she had found him. She over-
shadowed him with her feathers, she made air (or wind)
with her wings, and she uttered cries at the burial of
her brother. She raised up the prostrate form of him
whose heart was still, she took from him of his essence,
she conceived and brought forth a child, she suckled
it in secret, and none knew the place thereof; and the
arm of the child hath waxed strong in the great house
of Seb. The company of the gods rejoice, and are glad
at the coming of Osiris's son Horus, and firm of heart
and triumphant is the son of Isis,1he heir of Osiris." l
What form the details of the history of Osiris took
in the early dynasties it is impossible to say, and we
know not Whether Osiris was the god of the resur-
rection td the predynastic or prehistoric Egyptians, or
whether that rdle was attributed to him after Mena
began to rule in Egypt. There is, however, good
reason for assuming that in the earliest dynastic times
he occupied the position of god and judge of those
who had risen from the dead by his help, for already
in the IVth dynasty, about B.C. 3800, king Men-kau^-Ea
(the Mycerinus of the Greeks) is identified with him,
and on his coffin not tfnly is he called " Osiris, King
of the South and North, Men-kau-Ea, living for ever,"
but the genealogy of Osiris is attributed to him, and
1 This remarkable hymn was first made known by Chabas, who
published a translation of it, with notes, in Revue Arclifologique,
Paris, 1857, t. xiv. p. 65 ff.
OSIRIS THE GOD-MAN. 59
he is declared to be " born of heaven, offspring of Nut,
flesh and bone of Seb." It is evident that the priests
of Heliopolis "edited" the religious texts copied and
multiplied in the College to suit their own views, but
in the early times when they began their work, the
worship of Osiris was so widespread, and the belief
in him as the god of the resurrection so deeply in-
grained in the hearts of the Egyptians, that even in
the Heliopolitan system of theology Osiris and his
cycle, or company of gods, were made to hold a very
prominent position. He represented to men the idea
of a man who was both god and man, and he typified
to the Egyptians in all ages the being who by reason
of his sufferings and death as a man could sympathize
with them in their own sickness and death. The idea
of his human personality also satisfied their cravings
and yearnings for intercourse with a being who, though
he was partly divine, yet had much in common with
themselves. Originally they looked upon Osiris as
a man who lived on the earth as they lived, who ate
and drank, who suffered a cruel death, who by the
help of certain gods triumphed over death, and attained
unto everlasting life. But what Osiris did they could
do, and what the gods did for Osiris they must also do
for them, and as the gods brought about his resurrection
so they must bring about theirs, and as they made him
the ruler of the underworld so they must make them
to enter his kingdom and to live there as long as the
6O THE RESURRECTION OF OSIRIS.
god himself lived. Osiris, in some of his aspects, was
identified with the Nile, and with Ea, and with several
other " gods " known to the Egyptians, but it was in
his aspect as god of the resurrection and of eternal life
that he appealed to men in the valley of the Nile;
and for thousands of years men and women died
believing that, inasmuch as all that was done for Osiris
would be done for them symbolically, they like him
would rise again and inherit life everlasting. However
far back we trace religious ideas in Egypt, we never
approach a time when it can be said that there did
not exist a belief in the Resurrection, for everywhere
it is assumed that Osiris rose from the dead ; sceptics
must have existed, and they probably asked their
priests 'what the Corinthians asked Saint Paul, " How
are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they
come ? " But beyond doubt the belief in the Resur-
rection was accepted by the dominant classes in Egypt.
The ceremonies which the Egyptians performed . with
the view of assisting^ the deceased to pass the ordeal
of the judgment, and to overcome his enemies in the
next world, will be described elsewhere, as also will
be the form in which the dead were raised up ; we
therefore return to the theological history of Osiris.
The centre and home of the worship of Osiris in
Egypt under the early dynasties was Abydos, where
the head of the god was said to be buried. It spread
"north and south in the course of time, and several
f OSIRIS THE CAUSE OF THE RESURRECTION. 6 1
large cities claimed to possess one or other of the limbs
of his body. The various episodes in the life of the
god were made the subject of solemn representations
in the temple, and little by little the performance
of the obligatory and non-obligatory services in con-
nection with them occupied, in certain temples, the
greater part of the time of the priests. The original
ideas concerning the god were forgotten and new ones
grew up ; from being the example of a man who had
risen from the dead and had attained unto life ever-
lasting, he became the cause of the resurrection of the
dead; and the power to bestow eternal life upon
mortals was transferred from the gods to him. The
alleged dismemberment of Osiris was forgotten in the
o o
fact that he dwelt in a perfect body in the underworld,
and that, whether dismembered or not, he had become
after his death the father of Horus by Isis. As early
as the Xllth dynasty, about B.C. 2500, the worship
of this god had become almost universal, and a thousand
years later Osiris had become a sort of national god.
The attributes of the great cosmic gods were ascribed
to him, and he appeared to man not only as the god
and judge of the dead, but also as the creator of the
world and of all things in it. He who was the son
of Eu, became the equal of his father, and he took
his place side by side with him in heaven.
We have an interesting proof of the identification
of Osiris with Ra in Chapter XVII. of the Book of
62 IDENTIFICATION OF OSIRIS WITH RA.
the Dead. It will be remembered that this Chapter
consists of a series of what might almost be called
articles of faith, each of which is followed by one
or more explanations which represent one or more
quite different opinions; the Chapter also is accom-
panied by a series of Vignettes. In line 110 it is
said, " I am the soul which dwelleth in the two tchqfi.1
What is this then ? It is Osiris when he goeth into
Tattu (i.e., Busiris) and findeth there the soul of Ea ;
there the one god embraceth the other, and souls spring
into being within the two tchafi." In the Vignette
which illustrates this passage the souls of Ea and
Osiris are seen in the forms of hawks standing on a
pylon and facing each other in Tattu ; the former has
upon his head a disk, and the latter, who is human-
headed, the white crown. It is a noticeable fact that
even at his meeting with Ea the soul of Osiris preserves
the human face, the sign of his kinship with man.
Now Osiris became not only the equal of Ea, but,
in many respects, a greater god than he. It is said
that from the nostrils of the head of Osiris, which
was buried at Abydos, came forth the scarabaeusa
which was at once the emblem and type of the god
Khepera, who caused all things to come into being,
and of the resurrection. In this manner Osiris became
the source and origin of gods, men, and things, and
1 I.e., the souls of Osiris and Ra.
* See vou Bergmann in Aeg Ztittchrift, 1880, p. 88 ff.
The soul of Hi (1) meeting the soul of Osiris ,2) in Tattu. The
cat (i.«., l!a) by the Persia tree (3) cutting oQ the bead of the
»c.j>t!iit whicu tj-piliai uight.
HYMN TO OSIRIS. 65
the manhood of the god was forgotten. The next
step was to ascribe to him the attributes of God, and
in the XVIIIth and XlXth dynasties he seems to have
disputed the sovereignty of the three companies of
gods, that is to say of the trinity of trinities of trinities,1
with Amen-Ka, who by this time was usually called
the "king of the gods." The ideas held concerning
Osiris at this period will best be judged by the following
extracts from contemporary hymns : —
" Glory 2 be to thee, 0 Osiris, Un-nefer, the great god
within Abtu (Abydos), king of eternity, lord of ever-
lastingness, who passest through millions of years in
thy existence. The eldest son of the womb of Nut,
engendered by Seb the Ancestor [of the gods], lord
of the crowns of the South and of the North, lord of
the lofty white crown; as prince of gods and men
he hath received the crook and the whip, and the
dignity of his divine fathers. Let thy heart, which
dwelleth in the mountain of Ament, be content, for
thy son Horus is stablished upon thy throne. ^ Thou art
crowned lord of Tattu (Busiris) and ruler in Abydos."
"Praise3 be unto thee, O Osiris, lord of eternity,
Un-nefer, Heru-Khuti (Harmachis) whose forms are
manifold, and whose attributes are great, who art
Ptah-Seker-Tem in Annu (Heliopolis), the lord of the
1 Each company of the gods contained three trinities or triads.
2 See CJiaptera of Coming Forth by Day (translation), p. 1 1 .
1 Ibid., p. 34.
F
66 HYMN TO OSIRIS.
hidden place, and the creator of Het-ka-Ptah (Memphis)
and of the gods [therein], the guide of the underworld,
whom [the gods] glorify when thou settest in Nut.
Isis embraceth thee in peace, and she driveth away
the fiends from the mouth of thy paths. Thou turnest
thy face upon Amentet, and thou makest the earth
to shine as with refined copper. The dead rise up
to see thee, they breathe the air and they look upon
thy face when the disk riseth on its horizon ; their
hearts are at peace, inasmuch as they behold thee, O
thou who art eternity and everlastingness."
In the latter extract Osiris is identified with the
great gods of Heliopolis and Memphis, where shrines
of the Sun-god existed in almost pre-dynastic times,
and finally is himself declared to be "eternity and
everlastingness"; thus, the jdeas of resurrection ancL
immortality are united in the same divine being. In
the following Litany the process of identification with
the gods is continued : —
1. " Homage to thee, 0 thou who art the starry
deities in Annu, and the heavenly beings in Kher-aba ; l
thou god Unti,2 who art more glorious than the gods
who are hidden in Annu. 0 grant thou unto me a
path whereon I may pass in peace, for I am just and
true; I have not spoken lies wittingly, nor have I
done aught with deceit."
1 A district near Memphis.
2 A god who walks before the boat of the god Af, holding a star ia
each hand.
A LITANY. 67
2. "Homage to thee, O An in Antes, Harmachis;
thou strictest over heaven with long strides, 0 Har-
machis. 0 grant thou unto me a path," etc.1
3. " Homage to thee, 0 soul of everlastingness, thou
•Soul who dwellest in Tattu, Un-nefer, son of Nut ;
thou art lord of Akert (i.e., the underworld). 0 grant
thou unto me a path," etc.
4. "Homage to thee in thy dominion over Tattu;
the Ureret crown is stablished upon thy head ; thou
art the One who maketh the strength which protecteth
himself, and thou dwellest in peace in Tattu. 0 grant
thou unto me a path," etc.
5. " Homage to thee, 0 lord of the Acacia a tree, the
Seker boat 3 is set upon its sledge ; thou turnest back
the Fiend, the worker of Evil, and thou causest the
Utchat (i.e., the Eye of Horus or Ea), to rest upon its
seat. 0 grant thou unto me a path," etc.
6. "Homage to thee, 0 thou who art mighty in
thine hour, thou great and mighty Prince, dweller in
An-rut-f,4 lord of eternity and creator of everlasting-
ness, thou art the lord of Suten-henen (i.e., Heracleopolis
Magna). 0 grant," etc.
7. " Homage to thee, 0 thou who restest upon
1 This petition is only written once, but it is intended to be repeated
after each of the nine sections of the Litany.
2 This trie was in Heliopolis, and the Cat, i.e., the Sun, sat near it.
(See p. 63).
* The ceremony of setting the Seker boat on its sledge was per-
formed at dawn.
4 The place where nothing grows — the underworld.
68 A LITANY.
Eight and Truth, thou art lord of Abydos, and thy
limbs are joined unto Ta-tchesert (i.e., the Holy Land,
the underworld) ; thou art he to whom fraud and guile
are hateful. 0 grant," etc.
8. " Homage to thee, 0 thou who art within thy
boat, thou bringest Hapi (i.e., the Nile) forth from his
source ; the light shineth upon thy body, and thou art
the dweller in Nekhen. O grant," etc.
9. "Homage to thee, O creator of the gods, thou
king of the South and of the North, 0 Osiris, victorious
one, ruler of the world in thy gracious seasons ; thou
art the lord of the celestial world. 0 grant," etc.
And, again : " Ea setteth as Osiris with all the
diadems of the divine spirits and of the gods of
Amentet. He is the one divine form, the hidden one
of the Tuat, the holy Soul at the head of Amentet,
Un-nefer, whose duration of life is for ever and ever." 1
We have already referred to the help which Thoth
gave to Isis when he provided her with the words
which caused her dead husband to live again, but the
best summary of the good deeds which this god
wrought for Osiris is contained in a hymn in the
Papyrus of Hunefer* where the deceased is made
to say : —
" I have come unto thee, 0 son of Nut, Osiris, Prince
of everlastingness ; I am in the following of the god
Thoth, and I have rejoiced at everything which he
1 See Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 334. * Ibid., p. 343.
THOTH AND OSIRIS. 69
hath done for thee. He brought tjie sweet air into
thy nostrils, and life and strength to thy beautiful
face ; and the north wind which cometh forth from
Temu for thy nostrils, O lord of Ta-tchesert. He
made the god Shu to shine upon thy body ; he
illumined thy path with rays of light; he destroyed
for thee the faults and defects of thy members by the
magical power of the words of his mouth ; he made
Set and Horus to be at peace for thy sake ; he de-
stroyed the storm-wind and the hurricane ; he made
the two combatants (i.e., Set and Horus) to be gracious
unto thee and the two lands to be at peace before thee ;
he did away the wrath which was in their hearts, and
each became reconciled unto his brother (i.e., thyself).
"Thy son Horus is triumphant in the presence of
the full assembly of the gods, the sovereignty over the
world hath been given unto him, and his dominion
extendeth unto the uttermost parts of the earth. The
throne of the god Seb hath been adjudged unto him,
together with the rank which was created by the god
Temu, and which hath been stablished by decrees
[made] in the Chamber of Archives, and hath been
inscribed upon an iron tablet according to the command
of thy father Ptah-Tanen when he sat upon the great
throne. He hath set his brother upon that which the
god Shu beareth up (i.e., the heavens), to stretch out
the waters over the mountains, and to make to spring
up that which groweth upon the hills, and the grain (?)
7O ADDRESS OF THOTH TO OSIRIS.
which shooteth upon the earth, and he giveth increase
by water and by land. Gods celestial and gods ter-
restrial transfer themselves to the service of thy son
Horus, and they follow him into his hall [where] a
decree is passed that he shall be lord over them, and
they do [his will] straightway.
" Let thy heart rejoice, O lord of the gods, let thy
heart rejoice greatly ; Egypt and the Eed Land are
at peace, and they serve humbly under thy sovereign
power. The temples are stablished upon their own
lands, cities and nomes possess securely the goods
which they have in their names, and we will make
unto thee the divine offerings which we are bound
to make, and offer sacrifices in thy name for ever.
Acclamations are made in thy name, libations are
poured out to thy KA, and sepulchral meals [are
brought unto thee] by the spirits who are in thy
following, and water is sprinkled. ... on each side
of the souls of the dead in this land. Every plan for
thee which hath been decreed by the commands of Ea
from the beginning hath been perfected. Now there-
fore, 0 son of Nut, thou art crowned as Neb-er-tcher
is crowned at his rising. Thou livest, thou art stab-
lished, thou renewest thy youth, and thou art true
and perfect ; thy father Ea maketh strong thy members,
and the company of the gods make acclamations unto
thee. The goddess Isis is with thee and she never
leaveth thee; [thou art] not overthrown by thine
OSIRIS AND THE SECOND BIRTH. /I
enemies. The lords of all lands praise thy beauties,
even as they praise Ea when he riseth at the beginning
of each day. Thou risest up like an exalted being
upon thy standard, thy beauties lift up the face [of
man] and make long [his] stride. The sovereignty
of thy father Seb hath been given unto thee, and the
goddess Nut, thy mother, who gave birth to the gods,
brought thee forth as the firstborn of five gods, and
created thy beauties and fashioned thy members. Thou
art stablished as king, the white crown is upon thy
head, and thou hast grasped in thy hands the crook
and whip; whilst thou wert in the womb, and hadst
riot as yet come forth therefrom upon the earth, thou
wert crowned lord of the two lands, and the 'Atef
crown of Ea was upon thy brow. The gods come
unto thee bowing low to the ground, and they hold
thee in fear; they retreat and depart when they
see thee with the terror of Ea, and the victory of
thy Majesty is in their hearts. Life is with thee, and
offerings of meat and drink follow thee, and that which
is thy due is offered up before thy face."
In one paragraph of another somewhat similar
hymn l other aspects of Osiris are described, and after
the words " Homage to thee, O Governor of those who
are in Amentet," he is called the being who "giveth
birth unto men and women a second time," 2 i.e., " who
1 See Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 342.
' The words arc mes temcmu em nta.
?2 HORUS THE HEIR OF OSIRIS.
maketh mortals to be born again." As the whole
paragraph refers to Osiris " renewing himself," and to
his making himself "young like unto Ea each and
every day," there can be no doubt that the resurrection^
of the dead, that is to say, their birth into a new life,
is what the writer means by the second birth of men
and women. From this passage also we may see that
Osiris has become the equal of Ea, and that he has
passed from being the god of the dead to being the
god of the living. Moreover, at the time when the
above extracts were copied Osiris was not only assumed
to have occupied the position which Ea formerly held,
but his son Horus, who was begotten after his death,
was, by virtue of his victory over Set, admitted
to be the heir and successor of Osiris. And he not
only succeeded to the " rank and dignity " of his father
Osiris, but in his aspect of "avenger of his father,"
he gradually acquired the peculiar position of inter-
mediary and intercessor on behalf of the children
of men. Thus in the Judgment Scene he leads the
deceased into the presence of Osiris and makes an
appeal to his father that the deceased may be allowed
to enjoy the benefits enjoyed by all those who are
"true of voice" and justified in the judgment. Such
an appeal, addressed to Osiris in the presence of Isis,
from the son born under such remarkable circum-
stances was, the Egyptian thought, certain of accept-
ance; and the offspring of a father, after the death
PRAYER TO OSIRIS. 73
of whose body he was begotten, was naturally the best
advocate for the deceased.
But although such exalted ideas of Osiris and his
position among the gods obtained generally in Egypt
during the XVIIIth dynasty (about B.C. 1600) there
is evidence that some believed that in spite of every
precaution the body might decay, and that it was
necessary to make a special appeal unto Osiris if this
dire result was to be avoided. The following remark-
able prayer was first found inscribed upon a linen
swathing which had enveloped the mummy of
Thothmes III., but since that time the text, written in
hieroglyphics, has been found inscribed upon the Papy-
rus of Nu,1 and it is, of course, to be found also in the
late papyrus preserved at Turin, which the late Dr.
Lepsius published so far back as 1842. This text,
which is now generally known as Chapter CLIV of
the Book of the Dead, is entitled "The Chapter of
not letting the body perish." The text begins : —
"Homage to thee, 0 my divine father Osiris! I
have come to thee that thou mayest embalm, yea
embalm these my members, for I would not perish
and come to an end, [but would be] even like unto
my divine father Khepera, the divine type of him
that never saw corruption. Come, then, and make
me to have the mastery over my breath, 0 thou lord
1 Brit. Mas., No. 10,477, sheet 18. I have publisled the text in
my Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, pp. 398-402.
74 THE DECAY OF THE BODY DESCRIBED.
of the winds, who dost magnify those divine beings
who are like unto thyself. Stablish thou me, then,
and strengthen me, 0 lord of the funeral chest. Grant
thou that I may enter into the land of everlastingness,
even as it was granted unto thee, and unto thy father
Temu, O thou whose body did not see corruption, and
who thyself never sawest corruption. I have never
wrought that which thou hatest, nay, I have uttered
acclamations with those who have loved thy KA. Let
not my body turn into worms, but deliver me [from
them] even as thou didst deliver thyself. I beseech
thee, let me not fall into rottenness as thou dost let
every god, and every goddess, and every animal, and
every reptile to see corruption when the soul hath
gone forth from them after their death. For when
the soul departeth, a man seeth corruption, and the
bones of his body rot and become wholly loathsome-
ness, the members decay piecemeal, the bones crumble
into an inert mass, the flesh turneth into fostid liquid,
and he becometh a brother unto the decay which
cometh upon him. And he turneth into a host of
worms, and he becometh a mass of worms, and an
end is made of him, and he perisheth in the sight of
the god Shu even as doth every god, and every goddess,
and every feathered fowl, and every fish, and every
creeping thing, and every reptile, and every animal,
and every thing whatsoever. When the worms see me
and know me, let them fall upon their bellies, and
THE DECEASED IDENTIFIED WITH KHEPERA. 75
let the fear of me terrify them; and thus let it be
with every creature after [my] death, whether it be
animal, or bird, or fish, or worm, or reptile. And let
life arise out of death. Let not decay caused by any
reptile make an end [of me], and let not them come
against me in their various forms. Do not thou give me
over unto that slaughterer who dwelleth in his torture-
chamber (?), who killeth the members of the body and
maketh them to rot, who worketh destruction upon
many dead bodies, whilst he himself remaineth hidden
and liveth by slaughter ; let me live and perform his
message, and let me do that which is commanded by
him. Give me not over unto his fingers, and let him
not gain the mastery over me, for I am under thy
command, 0 lord of the gods.
" Homage to thee, O my divine father Osiris, thou
hast thy being with thy members. Thou didst not
decay, thou didst not become worms, thou didst not
diminish, thou didst not become corruption, thou didst
not putrefy, and thou didst not turn into worms."
The deceased then identifying himself with Khepera,
the god who created Osiris and his company of gods,
" I am the god Khepera, and my members shall have
an everlasting existence. I shall not decay, I shall
not rot, I shall not putrefy, I shall not turn into
worms, and I shall not see corruption under the eye
of the god Shu. I shall have my being, I shall have
76 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.
my being ; I shall live, I shall live ; I shall germinate,
I shall germinate, I shall germinate ; I shall wake up
in peace. I shall not putrefy ; my bowels shall not
perish; I shall not suffer injury; mine eye shall not
decay; the form of my countenance shall not dis-
appear ; mine ear shall not become deaf; my head shall
not be separated from my neck ; my tongue shall not be
carried away ; my hair shall not be cut off; mine eye-
brows shall not be shaved off, and no baleful injury shall
come upon me. My body shall be stablished, and it shall
neither fall into ruin nor be destroyed on this earth."
Judging from such passages as those given above
we might think that certain of the Egyptians expected
a resurrection of the physical body, and the mention
of the various members of the body seems to make
this view certain. But the body of which the incorrup-
tion and immortality are so strongly declared is the
SAHU, or spiritual body, that sprang into existence out
of the physical body, which had become transformed
by means of the prayers that had been recited and
the ceremonies that had been performed on the day
of the funeral, or on that wherein it was laid in the
tomb. It is interesting to notice that no mention is
made of meat or drink in the CLIVth Chapter, and
the only thing which the deceased refers to as necessary
for his existence is air, which he obtains through the
god Temu, the god who is always depicted in human
form ; the god is here mentioned in his aspect of the
MUTILATION OF THE BODY AFTER DEATH. 77
night Sun as opposed to Ea the day Sun, and a
comparison of the Sun's daily death with the death
of the deceased is intended to be made. The deposit
of the head of the God-man Osiris at Abydos has
already been mentioned, and the belief that it was
preserved there was common throughout Egypt. But
in the text quoted above the deceased says, " My head
shall not be separated from my neck," which seems
to indicate that he wished to keep his body whole,
notwithstanding that Osiris was almighty, and could
restore the limbs and reconstitute the body, even as
he had done for his own -limbs and body which had
been hacked to pieces by Set. Chapter XLIII of the
Book of the Dead1 also has an important reference
to the head of Osiris. It is entitled " The Chapter
of not letting the head of a man be cut off from him
in the underworld," and must be of considerable
antiquity. In it the deceased says : " I am the Great
One, the son of the Great One ; I am Fire, and the
son of the Fire, to whom was given his head after
it had been cut off. The head of Osiris was not taken
away from him, let not the head of the deceased be
taken away from him. I have knit myself together (or
reconstituted myself) ; I have made myself whole and
complete ; I have renewed my youth ; I am Osiris, the
lord of eternity."
From the above it would seem that, according to
1 See The Cliapfert of Coming Forth Tnj Day, p. 98.
78 REASONS FOR MUTILATING THE BODY.
one version of the Osiris story, the head of Osiris was
not rOnly cut off, but that it was passed through the
fire also; and if this version be very ancient, as it
well may be and probably is, it takes us back to pre-
historic times in Egypt when the bodies of the dead
were mutilated and burned. Prof. Wiedemann thinks l
that the mutilation and breaking of the bodies of the
dead were the results of the belief that in order to
make the KA, or " double," leave this earth, the body
to which it belonged must be broken, and he instances
the fact that objects of every kind were broken at the
time when they were placed in the tombs. He traces
also a transient custom in the prehistoric graves of
Egypt where the methods of burying the body whole
and broken into pieces seem to be mingled, for though
in some of them the body has been broken into pieces,
it is evident that successful attempts have been made
to reconstitute it by laying the pieces as far as possible
in their proper places. And it may be this custom
which is referred to in various places in the Book of
the Dead, when the deceased declares that he has
collected his limbs " and made his body whole again,"
and already in the Vth dynasty King Teta is thus
addressed — " Rise up, 0 thou Teta ! Thou hast received
thy head, thou hast knitted together thy bones,2 thou
hast collected thy members."
1 See J. de Morgan, Ethnographic Prfhistorique, p. 210.
• Recueil de Travaux, torn. v. p. 40 (1. 287).
PERSISTENCE OF OSIRIS WORSHIP. 79
The history of Osiris, the god of the resurrection,
has now been traced from the earliest times to the
end of the period of the rule of the priests of Amen
(about B.C. 900), by which time Amen-Ra had been
thrust in among the gods of the underworld, and
prayers were made, in some cases, to him instead of
to Osiris. From this time onwards Amen maintained
this exalted position, and in the Ptolemaic period, in
an address to the deceased Kerasher-we read "Thy
face shineth before Ea, thy soul liveth before Amen,
and thy body is renewed before Osiris." And again
it is said, " Amen is nigh unto thee to make thee to
live again. . . . Amen cometh to thee having the
breath of life, and he causeth thee to draw thy breath
within thy funeral house." But in spite of this, Osiris
kept and held the highest place in the minds of the
Egyptians, from first to last, as the God-man, the being
who was both divine and human; and no foreign
invasion, and no religious or political disturbances, and
no influence which any outside peoples could bring
to bear upon them, succeeded in making them regard
the god as anything less than the cause and symbol
and type of the resurrection, and of the life everlasting.
For about five thousand years men were mummified
in imitation of the mummied form of Osiris ; and they
went to their graves believing that their bodies would
vanquish the powers of death, and the grave, and
decay, because Osiris had vanquished them ; and they
So ANTHONY'S DISLIKE TO MUMMIFYING.
had certain hope of the resurrection in an immortal,
eternal, and spiritual body, because Osiris had risen
in a transformed spiritual body, and had ascended
into heaven, where he had become the king and the
judge of the dead, and had attained unto everlasting
life therein.
The chief reason for the persistence of the worship
of Osiris in Egypt was, probably, the fact that it
promised both resurrection and eternal life to its
followers. Even after the Egyptians had embraced
Christianity they continued to mummify their dead,
and for long after they continued to mingle the
attributes of their God and the " gods " with those of
God Almighty and Christ. The Egyptians of their
own will never got away from the belief that the body
must be mummified if eternal life was to be assured
to the dead, but the Christians, though preaching the
same doctrine of the resurrection as the Egyptians,
went a step further, and insisted that there was no
need to mummify the dead at all. St. Anthony the
Great besought his followers not to embalm his body
and keep it in a house, but to bury it and to tell
no man where it had been buried, lest those who loved
him should come and draw it forth, and mummify it
as they were wont to do to the bodies of those whom
they regarded as saints. " For long past," he said, " I
have entreated the bishops and preachers to exhort the
people not to continue to observe this useless custom " ;
DEATH OF OSIRIS WORSHIP. 8 1
and concerning his own body, he said, " At the resur-
rection of the dead I shall receive it from the Saviour
incorruptible."1 The spread of this idea gave the
art of mummifying its death-blow, and though from
innate conservatism, and the love of having the actual
bodies of their beloved dead near them, the Egyptians
continued for a time to preserve their dead as before,
yet little by little the reasons for mummifying were
forgotten, the knowledge of the art died out, the funeral
ceremonies were curtailed, the prayers became a dead
letter, and the custom of making mummies became
obsolete. With the death of the art died also the
belief in and the worship of Osiris, who from being
the god of the dead became a dead god, and to the
Christians of Egypt, at least, his place was filled by
Christ, "the firstfruits of them that slept," Whose
resurrection and power to grant eternal life were at
that time being preached throughout most of the known
world. In Osiris the Christian Egyptians found the
prototype of Christ, and in the pictures and statues '
of Isis suckling her son Horus, they perceived the
prototypes of the Virgin Mary and her Child. Never
did Christianity find elsewhere in the world a people
whose minds wgre so thoroughly well prepared to
receive its doctrines as the Egyptians.
This chapter may be fittingly ended by a few
1 See Rosweyde, Viiae Patrum,.p. 59; Life of St. Anthony, by
Atlianasius (Migne), Fatrologix, Ser. Graec. torn. 26, col. 972.
82 SONGS OF ISIS AND NEPHTHYS.
extracts from the Songs of Isis and Nephtkys, which
were sung in the Temple of Amen-Ea at Thebes by
two priestesses who personified the two goddesses.1
"Hail, thou lord of the underworld, thou Bull of
those who are therein, thou ^linage of Ea-Harmachis,
thou Babe of beautiful appearance, come thou to us
in peace. Thou didst repel thy disasters, thou didst
drive away evil hap; Lord, come to us in peace.
O Un-nefer, lord of food, thou chief, thou who art
of terrible majesty, thou God, president of the gods,
when thou dost inundate the land [all] things are
engendered. Thou art gentler than the gods. The
emanations of thy body make the dead and the living
to live, 0 thou lord of food, thou prince of green
herbs, thou mighty lord, thou staff of life, thou giver
of offerings to the gods, and of sepulchral meals to
the blessed dead. Thy soul flieth after Ea, thou
shinest at dawn, thou settest at twilight, thou risest
every day ; thou shalt rise on the left hand of Atmu
for ever and ever. Thou art the glorious one, the
vicar of Ea ; the company of the gods cometh to thee
invoking thy face, the flame whereof reacheth unto
thine enemies. We rejoice when thou gatherest together
thy bones, and when thou hast made whole thy body
daily. Anubis cometh to thee, and the two sisters
{i.e., Isis and Nephthys) come to thee. They have
obtained beautiful things for thee, and they gather
1 See my Hieratic Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu (Archxologia, vol. Hi.)
SONGS OF ISIS AND NEPHTHYS. 83
together thy limbs for thee, and they seek to put
together the mutilated members of thy body. Wipe
thou the impurities which are on them upon our hair
and come thou to us having no recollection of that
which hath caused thee sorrow. Come thou in thy
attribute of ' Prince of the earth,' lay aside thy trepi-
dation and be at peace with us, O Lord. Thou shalt
be proclaimed heir of the world, and the One god,
and the fulfiller of the designs of the gods. All the
gods invoke thee, come therefore to thy temple and
be not afraid. 0 Ka (i.e., Osiris), thou art beloved of
Isis and Nephthys; rest thou in thy habitation for
ever."
CHAPTER III.
THE "GODS" OF THE EGYPTIANS.
THKOUGHOUT this book we have had to refer frequently
to the " gods " of Egypt ; it is now time to explain
who and what they were. We have already shown
how much the monotheistic side of the Egyptian
religion resembles that of modern Christian nations,
and it will have come as a surprise to some that a
people, possessing such exalted ideas of God as the
Egyptians, could ever have become the byword they
did through their alleged worship of a multitude of
" gods " in various forms. It is quite true that the \
Egyptians paid honour to a number of gods, a number
so large that the list of their mere names would fill
a volume, but it is equally true that .the educated
classes in Egypt at all times never placed the "gods"
on the same high level as God, and they never imagined
that their views on this point could be mistaken. In
prehistoric times every little village or town, every
district and province, and every great city, had its
own particular god; we may go a step farther, and
THE VILLAGE GOD. 8$
say that every family of any wealth and position had
its own god. The wealthy family selected some one
to attend to its god, and to minister unto his wants,
and the poor family contributed, according to its
means, towards a common fund for providing a dwell-
ing-house for the god, and for vestments, etc. But
the god was an integral part of the family, whether
rich or poor, and its destiny was practically locked
up with that of the family. The overthrow of the
family included the overthrow of the god, and seasons
of prosperity resulted in abundant offerings, new vest-
ments, perhaps a new shrine, and the like. The god
of the village, although he was a more important
being, might be led into captivity along with the
people of the village, but the victory of his followers -
in a raid or fight caused the honours paid to .him to
be magnified and enhanced his renown.
The gods of provinces or of great cities were, of
course, greater than those of villages and private
families, and in the large houses dedicated to them,
i.e., temples, a considerable number of them, represented
by statues, would be found. Sometimes the attributes
of one god would be ascribed to another, sometimes
two or more gods would be " fused " or united and
form one, sometimes gods were imported from remote
villages and towns and even from foreign countries,
and occasionally a community or town would repudiate
its god or gods, and adopt a brand new set from some
86 GODS OF PRE-DYNASTIC TIMES.
neighbouring district. Thus the number of the gods
was always changing, and the relative position of
individual gods was always changing ; an obscure, and
almost .unknown, local god to-day might through a
victory ,in war become the chief god of a city, and
on the other hand, a god worshipped with abundant
offerings and great ceremony one month might sink'
into insignificance and become to all intents and
purposes a dead god the next. But besides family and
village gods th^re were national gods, and gods of
rivers and mountains, and gods of earth and sky,
all of which taken together made a formidable number
of " divine " beings whose good-will had to be secured,
and whose ill- will must be appeased. Besides these,
a number of animals as being sacred to the gods were
also considered to be "divine," and fear as well as
love made the Egyptians add to their numerous classes
of gods.
The gods of Egypt whose names are known to us
do not represent all those that have been conceived
by the Egyptian imagination, for with them as with
much else, the law of the survival of the fittest holds
good. Of the gods of the prehistoric man we1 know
-nothing, but it is more than probable that some of
the gods who were worshipped in dynastic times
represent, in a modified form, the deities of the savage,
or semi-savage, Egyptian that held their influence *on
his mind the longest. A typical example of such a
THOTH AND WORDS OF POWER. 87
god will suffice, namely Thoth, whose original emblem
was the dog-headed ape. In very early times great
respect was paid' to this animal on account of his
sagacity, intelligence, and cunning; and the simple-
minded Egyptian, when he heard him chattering just
before the sunrise and sunset, assumed that he was
in some way holding converse or was intimately
connected with the sun. This idea clung to his mind,
and we find in dynastic times, in the vignette repre-
senting the rising sun, that the apes, who are said
to be the transformed openers of the portals of heaven,
form a veritable company of the gods, and at the
same time one of the most striking features of the
scene. Thus an idea which came into being in the most
remote times passed on from generation to generation
until it became crystallized in the best copies of the
Book of the Dead, at a period when Egypt was at its
zenith of power and glory. The peculiar species of
the dog-headed ape which is represented in statues
and on papyri is famous for its cunning, and it was
the words which it supplied to Thoth, who in turn
transmitted them to Osiris, that enabled Osiris to be
"true of voice," or triumphant, over his enemies. It
is probably in this capacity, i.e., as the friend of the
dead, that the dog-headed ape appears seated upon
the top of the standard of the Balance in which the
heart of the deceased is being weighed against the
feather symbolic of Maat; for the commonest titles
88 LOCAL AND NATIONAL GODS.
of the god are " lord of divine books," " lord of divine
words," i.e., the formulae which make the deceased to
be obeyed by friend and foe alike in the next world.
In later times, when Thoth came to be represented by
the ibis bird, his attributes were multiplied, and he
became the god of letters, science, mathematics, etc. ; at
the creation he seems to have played a part not unlike
that of " wisdom " which is so beautifully described
by the writer of Proverbs (see Chap. VIII. vv. 23-31).
Whenever and wherever the Egyptians attempted
to set up a system of gods they always found that
the old local gods had to be taken into consideration,
and a place had to be found for them in the system.
This might be done by making them members of
triads, or of groups of nine gods, now commonly called
" enneads " ; but in one form or other they had to
appear. The researches made during the last few
years have shown that there must have been several
large schools of theological thought in Egypt, and
of each of these the priests did their utmost to proclaim
the superiority of their gods. In dynastic times there
must have been great colleges at Heliopolis, Memphis,
Abydos, and one or more places in the Delta, not
to mention the smaller schools of priests which pro-
bably existed at places on both sides of the Nile from
Memphis to the south. Of the theories and doctrines
of all such schools and colleges, those of Heliopolis
have survived in the completest form, and by careful
IDENTITY OF TEMU AND RA. 89
examination of the funeral texts which were inscribed
on the monuments of the kings of Egypt of the Vth
and Vlth dynasties we can say what views they held
about many of the gods. At the outset we see that
the great god of Heliopolis was Tenm or Atmu, the
setting sun, and to him the priests of that place
ascribed the attributes which rightly belong to Ea,
the Sun-god of the day-time. For some reason or
other they formulated the idea of a company of the
gods, nine in number, which was called the "great
company (paut) of the gods," and at the head of this
company they placed the god Temu. In Chapter
XVII of the Book of the Dead l we find the following
passage : —
" I am the god Temu in his rising ; I am the only
One. I came into being in Nu. I am Ea who rose
in the beginning."
Next comes the question, " But who is this ? " And
the answer is : " It is Ea when at the beginning he rose
in the city of Suten-henen (Heracleopolis Magna)
crowned like a king in rising. The pillars of the
god Shu were not as yet created" when he was upon
the staircase of him that dwelleth in Khemennu
(Hermopolis Magna)." From these statements we
learn that Temu and Ea were one and the same god,
and that he was the first offspring of the god Nu,
the primeval watery mass, out of which all the gods
1 See Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 49.
90 THE GODS AS NAMES OF RA.
came into being. The text continues : " I am the great
god N"u who gave birth to himself, and who made his
names to come into being and to form the company
of the gods. But who is this ? It is Ea, the creator
of the names of his members which came into being
in the form of the gods who are in the train of Ea."
And again : " I am he who is not driven back among
the gods. But who is this ? It is Tern, the dweller
in his disk, or as others say, it is Ea in his rising
in the eastern horizon of heaven." Thus we learn
further that Nu was self-produced, and that the gods
are simply the names of his limbs ; but then Ea is
Nu, and the gods who are in his train or following are
merely personifications of the names of his own
members. He who cannot be driven back among
the gods is either Temu or Ea, and so we find that
Nu, Temu, and Ea are one and the same god. The
priests of Heliopolis in setting Temu at the head of their
company of the gods thus gave Ea, and Nu also, a
place of high honour; they cleverly succeeded in
making their own local god chief of the company, but
at the same time they provided the older gods with
positions of importance. In this way worshippers
of Ea, who had regarded their god as the oldest of
the gods, would have little cause to complain of the
introduction of Temu into the company of the gods,
and the local vanity of Heliopolis would be gratified.
But besides the nine gods who were supposed to
THE COMPANY OF THE GODS. 9!
form the " great company " of gods of the city of
Heliopolis, there was a second group of nine gods
called the "little company" of the gods, and yet a
third group of nine gods, which formed the least
company. Now although the paut or company of nine
gods might be expected to contain nine always, this
was not the case, and the number nine thus applied
is sometimes misleading. There are several passages
extant in texts in which the gods of a paut are
enumerated, but the total number is sometimes ten
and sometimes eleven. This fact is easily explained
when we remember that the Egyptians deified the
various forms or aspects of a god, or the various phases
in his life. Thus the setting sun, called Temu or
Atmu, and the rising sun, called Khepera, and the
mid-day sun, called Ea, were three forms of the same
god ; and if any one of these three forms was included
in a paut or company of nine gods, the other two
forms were also included by implication, even though
the paut then contained eleven instead of nine gods.
Similarly, the various forms of each god or goddess
of the paut were understood to be included in it,
however large the total number of gods might become.
We are not, therefore, to imagine that the three com-
panies of the gods were limited in number to 9 x 3,
or twenty -seven, even though the symbol for god be
given twenty-seven times in the texts.
We have already alluded to the great number of
92 TEMU AND SHU.
gods who were known to the Egyptians, but it will
be readily imagined that it was only those who were
thought to deal with man's destiny, here and hereafter,
who obtained the worship and reverence of the people
of Egypt. These were, comparatively, limited in
number, and in fact may be said to consist of the
members of the great company of the gods of Heliopolis,
that is to say, of the gods who belonged to the cycle
of Osiris. These may be briefly described as follows : —
1. TEMU or ATMU, i.e., the " closer " of the day, just
as Ptah was the " opener " of the day. In the story of
the creation he declares that he evolved himself under
the form of the god Khepera, and in hymns he is said
to be the " maker of the gods," " the creator of men,"
etc., and he usurped the position of Ra among the gods
of Egypt. His worship must have been already very
ancient at the time of the kings of the Vth dynasty,
for his traditional form is that of a man at that time.
2. SHU was the firstborn son of Temu. According
to one legend he sprang direct from the god, and
according to another the goddess Hathor was his
mother; yet a third legend makes him the son of
Temu by the goddess lusaset. He it was who made
his way between the gods Seb and Nut and raised
up the latter to form the sky, and this belief is com-
memorated by the figures of this god in which he
is represented as a god raising himself up from the
earth with the sun's disk on his shoulders. As a
TEFNUT AND SEB. 93
power of nature he typified the light, and, standing
on the top of a staircase at Hermopolis Magna,1 he
raised up the sky and held it up during each day.
To assist him in this work he placed a pillar at each
of the cardinal points, and the " supports of Shu " are
thus the props of the sky.
3. TEFNUT was the twin-sister of Shu; as a power
of nature she typified moisture or some aspect of the
sun's heat, but as a god of the dead she seems to
have been, in some way, connected with the supply
of drink to the deceased. Her brother Shu was the
right eye of Temu, and she was the left, i.e., Shu
represented an aspect of the Sun, and Tefnut of the
Moon. The gods Temu, Shu, and Tefnut thus formed
a trinity, and in the story of the creation the god
Temu says, after describing how Shu and Tefnut
proceeded from himself, " thus from being one god I
became three."
4. SEB was the son of the god Shu. He is called
the "Erpa," i.e., the "hereditary chief" of the gods,
and the " father of the gods," these being, of course,
Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. He was originally the
god of the earth, but later he became a god of the
dead as representing the earth wherein the deceased
was laid. One legend identifies him with the goose,
the bird which in later times was sacred to him, and
he is often called the " Great Cackler," in allusion
1 See above, pp. 69 and 89.
94 THE GODDESS NUT.
to the idea that he made the primeval egg from
which the world came into being.
5. NUT was the wife of Seb and the mother of Osiris,
Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Originally she was the
personification of the sky, and represented the feminine
principle which was active at the creation of the
universe. According to an old view, Seb and Nut
existed in the primeval watery abyss side by side with
Shu and Tefnut ; and later Seb became the earth and
Nut the sky. These deities were supposed to unite
every evening, and to remain embraced until the morn-
ing, when the god Shu separated them, and set the
goddess of the sky upon his four pillars until the
evening. Nut was, naturally, regarded as the mother
of the gods and of all things living, and she and her
husband Seb were considered to be the givers of food,
not only to the living but also to the dead. Though
different views were current in Egypt as to the exact
location of the heaven of the beatified dead, yet all
schools of thought in all periods assigned it to some
region in the sky, and the abundant allusions in the
texts to the heavenly bodies — that is, the sun, moon,
and stars — which the deceased dwells with, prove that
the final abode of the souls of the righteous was not
upon earth. The goddess Nut is sometimes represented
as a female along whose body the sun travels, and
sometimes as a cow; the tree sacred to her was the
sycamore.
OSIRIS AND ISIS. 95
6. OSIRIS was the son of Seb and Nut, the, husband
of Isis and the father of Horus. The history of this
god is given elsewhere in this book so fully that it is
only necessary to refer briefly to him. He was held
to be a man although of divine origin ; he lived and
reigned as a king on this earth ; he was treacherously
murdered by his brother Set, and his body was cut up
into fourteen pieces, which were scattered about Egypt ;
after his death, Isis, by the use of magical formulae
supplied to her by Thoth, succeeded in raising him to
life, and he begot a son called Horus; when Horus
was grown up, he engaged in combat with Set, and
overcame him, and thus "avenged his father"; by
means of magical formulae, supplied to him by Thoth,
Osiris reconstituted and revivified his body, and became
the type of the resurrection and the symbol of immor-
tality ; he was also the hope, the judge, and the god
of the dead, probably even in pre-dynastic times.
Osiris was in one aspect a solar deity, and originally
he seems to have represented the sun after it had set ;
but he is also identified with the moon. In the
XVIIIth dynasty, however, he is already the equal
of Ea, and later the attributes of God and of all the
" gods " were ascribed to him.
7. Isis was the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus ;
as a nature goddess she had a place in the boat of the
sun at the creation, when she probably typified the
dawn. By reason of her success in revivifying her
96 . SET THE OPPONENT OF HORUS.
husband's body by means of the utterance of magical
formulae, she is called the "lady of enchantments."
Her wanderings in search of her husband's body, and
the sorrow which she endured in bringing forth and
rearing her child in the papyrus swamps of the Delta,
and the persecution which she suffered at the hands
of her husband's enemies, form the subject of many
allusions in texts of all periods. She has various
aspects, but the one which appealed most to the imagina-
tion of the Egyptians, was that of " divine mother " ;
in this character thousands of statues represent her
seated and suckling her child Horus whom she holds
upon her knees.
8. SET was the son of Seb and Nut, and the husband
of Nephthys. At a very early period he was regarded
as the brother and friend of " Horus the Elder," the
Aroueris of the Greeks, and Set represented the night
whilst Horus represented the day. Each of these gods
performed many offices of a friendly nature for the
dead, and among others they set up and held the ladder
by which the deceased made his way from this earth to
heaven, and helped him to ascend it. But, at a later
period, the views of the Egyptians concerning Set
changed, and soon after the reign of the kings called
" Seti," i.e., those whose names were based upon that of
the god, he became the personification of all evil, and
of all that is horrible and terrible in nature, such as
the desert in its most desolate form, the storm and the
NEPHTHYS, SISTER OF ISIS. '97
tempest, etc. Set, as a power of nature, was always
waging war with Horus the Elder, i.e., the night did
battle with the day for supremacy ; both gods, however,
sprang from the same source, for the heads of both are,
in one scene, made to belong to one body. When
Horus, the son of Isis, had grown up, he did battle with
Set, who had murdered Horus's father Osiris, and
vanquished him ; in many texts these two originally
distinct fights are confused, and the two Horus gods
also. The conquest of Set by Horus in the first conflict
typified only the defeat of the night by the day, but
the defeat of Set in the second seems to have been
understood as the victory of life over death, and of
good over evil. The symbol of Set was an animal with
a head something like that of a camel, but it has not
yet been satisfactorily identified ; figures of the god are
uncommon, for most of them were destroyed by the
Egyptians when they changed their views about
him.
9. NEPHTHYS was the sister of Isis and her com-
panion in all her wanderings and troubles; like her
she had a place in the boat of the Sun at creation, when
she probably typified the twilight or very early night.
She was, according to one legend, the mother of
Anubis by Osiris, but in the texts his father is declared
to be Ra. In funeral papyri, stelae, etc., she always
accompanies Isis in her ministrations to the dead, and
as she assisted Osiris and Isis to defeat the wickedness
H
98 NU AND PTAH.
of her own husband (Set), so she helped the deceased
to overcome the powers of death and the grave.
Here then we have the nine gods of the divine
company of Heliopolis, but no mention is made of
Horus, the son of Isis, who played such an important
part in the history of his father Osiris, and nothing
is said about Thoth ; both gods are, however, included
in the company in various passages of the text, and
it may be that their omission from it is the result of
an error of the scribe. We have already given the
chief details of the history of the gods Horus and
Thoth, and the principal gods of the other companies
may now be briefly named.
Nu was the " father of the gods/* and progenitor
of the " great company of the gods " ; he was the
primeval watery mass out of which all things came.
PTAH was one of the most active of the three great
gods who carried out the commands of Thoth, who
gave expression in words to the will of the primeval,
creative Power ; he was self-created, and was a form
of the Sun-god Ka as the " Opener " of the day. From
certain allusions in the Book of the Dead he is known
to have " opened the mouth " x of the gods, and it
is in this capacity that he became a god of the cycle
of Osiris. His feminine counterpart was the goddess
1 " May the god Ptah open my mouth" ; " may the god Shu open
my mouth with his implement of iron wherewith he opened the
mouth of the gods '' (Chap. XXIII.)
KHEPERA THE CREATOR. 99
SEKHET, and the third member of the triad of which
he was the chief was NEFER-TEMU.
PTAH-SEKER is the dual god formed by fusing Seker,
the Egyptian name of the incarnation of the Apis
Bull of Memphis, with Ptah.
PTAH-SEKER- AUSAR was a triune god who, in brief,
symbolized life, death, and the resurrection.
KHNEMU was one of the old cosmic gods who assisted
Ptah in carrying out the commands of Thoth, who
gave expression in words to the will of the primeval,
creative Power , he is described as " the maker of
things which are, the creator of things which shall
be, the source of created things, the father of fathers,
and the mother of mothers." It was he who, accord-
ing to one legend, fashioned man upon a potter's
wheel.
KHEPERA was an old primeval god, and the type
of matter which contains within itself the germ of
life which is about to spring into a new existence ;
thus he represented the dead body from which the
spiritual body was about to rise. He is depicted in the
form of a man having a beetle for a head, and this
insect became his emblem because it was supposed
to be self-begotten and self-produced. To the present
day certain of the inhabitants of the Sudan pound
the dried scarabseus or beetle and drink it in water,
believing that it will insure them a numerous progeny.
The name " Khepera " means " he who rolls," and
IOO RA THE SUN GOD.
when the insect's habit of rolling along its ball filled
with eggs is taken into consideration, the appropriate-
ness of the name is apparent. As the ball of eggs rolls
along the germs mature and burst into life ; and as
the sun rolls across the sky emitting light and heat
and with them life, so earthly things are produced
and have their being by virtue thereof.
RA was probably the oldest of the gods worshipped
in Egypt, and his name belongs to such a remote
period that its meaning is unknown. He was in all
periods the visible emblem of God, and was the god
of this earth to whom offerings and sacrifices were
made daily ; time began when Ea appeared above the
horizon at creation in the form of the Sun, and the
life of a man was compared to his daily course at a
very early date. Ea was supposed to sail over heaven
in two boats, the ATET or MA.TET boat in which he
journeyed from sunrise until noon, and the SEKTET
boat in which he journeyed from noon until sunset.
At his rising he was attacked by Apep, a mighty
" dragon " or serpent, the type of evil and darkness,
and with this monster he did battle until the fiery
darts which he discharged into the body of Apep
scorched and burnt him up ; the fiends that were
in attendance upon this terrible foe were also destroyed
by fire, and their bodies were hacked in pieces. A
repetition of this story is given in the legend of the
fight between Horus and Set, and in both forms it
HYMN TO RA. IOI
represented originally the fight which was supposed
to go on daily between light and darkness. Later,
however, when Osiris had usurped the position of Ea,
and Horus represented a divine power who was about
to avenge the cruel murder of his father, and the
wrong which had been done to him, the moral con-
ceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and
falsehood were applied to light and darkness, that is
to say, to Horus and Set.
As Ea was the " father of the gods," it was natural
that every god should represent some phase of him,
and that he should represent every god. A good
illustration of this fact is afforded by a Hymn to
Ea, a fine copy of which is found inscribed on
the walls of the sloping corridor in the tomb of
Seti I., about B.C. 1370, from which we quote the
following : —
11. " Praise be unto thee, O Ea, thou exalted Power,
who dost enter into the habitations of Ament, behold
[thy] body is Temu.
12. " Praise be unto thee, O Ea, thou exalted Power,
who dost enter into the hidden place of Anubis, behold
[thy] body is Khepera.
13. " Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
whose duration of life is greater than that of the hidden
forms, behold [thy] body is Shu.
14. " Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
. . . behold [thy] body is Tefnut.
102 RA THE FATHER OF THE GODS.
15. " Praise be unto thee, O Ea, thou exalted Power,
who bringest forth green things in their season, behold
[thy] body is Seb.
16. " Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
thou mighty being who dost judge,' . . . behold [thy]
body is Nut.
17. "Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
the lord . . . behold [thy] body is Isis.
18. " Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
whose head giveth light to that which is in front of
thee, behold [thy] body is Nephthys.
19. " Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
thou source of the divine members, thou One, who
bringest into being that which hath been begotten,
behold [thy] body is Horus.
20. " Praise be unto thee, 0 Ea, thou exalted Power,
who dost dwell in and illumine the celestial deep,
behold [thy] body is Nu." *
In the paragraphs which follow Ea is identified with
a large number of gods and divine personages whose
names are not of such common occurrence in the texts
as those given above, and in one way or another the
attributes of all the gods are ascribed to him. At
the time when the hymn was written it is clear that
polytheism, not pantheism as some would have it,
was in the ascendant, and notwithstanding the fact
1 For the text see Annalea du Mutfe Guimet: Le Tombeau de Stti 1,
(eel. Lefe'bure), Paris, 1886, pi. v.
RISE OF AMEN WORSHIP. 103
that the Theban god Amen was gradually being forced
to the headship of the companies of the gods of Egypt,
we find everywhere the attempt being made to
emphasize the view that every god, whether foreign
or native, was an aspect or form of Ha.
The god Amen just referred to was originally a local
god of Thebes, whose shrine was either founded or
rebuilt as far back as the Xllth dynasty, about
B.C. 2500. This " hidden " god, for such is the mean-
ing of the name Amen, was essentially a god of the
south of Egypt, but when the Theban kings vanquished
their foes in the north, and so became masters of the
whole country, Amen became a god of the first im-
portance, and the kings of the XVIIIth, XlXth, and
XXth dynasties endowed his temples on a lavish
scale. The priests of the god called Amen " the king
of the gods," and they endeavoured to make all Egypt
accept him as such, but in spite of their power they
saw that they could not bring this result about unless
they identified him with the oldest gods of the land.
They declared that he represented the hidden and
mysterious power which created and sustains the
universe, and that the sun was the symbol of this
power ; they therefore added his name to that of Ka,
and in this form he gradually usurped the attributes
and powers of Nu, Khnemu, Ptah, Hapi, and other
great gods. A revolt headed by Amen-hetep, or
Amenophis IV. (about B.C. 1500), took place against
104 THE HERESY OF THE DISK.
the supremacy of Amen in the middle of the XVIIIth
dynasty, but it was unsuccessful. This king hated
the god and his name so strongly that he changed his
own name into that of " Khu-en-Aten," i.e., " the glory
of the solar Disk," and ordered the name of Amen
to be obliterated, wherever possible, on temples and
other great monnments ; and this was actually done
in many places. It is impossible to say exactly what
the religious views of the king were, but it is certain
that he wished to substitute the cult of Aten, a form
of the Sun-god worshipped at Annu (i.e., On or
Heliopolis) in very ancient times, for that of Amen.
" Aten " means literally the " Disk of the Sun," and
though it is difficult to understand at this distance
of time in what the difference between the worship
of Ea and the worship of " Ba in his Disk " consisted,
we may be certain that there must have been some
subtle, theological distinction between them. But
whatever the difference may have been, it was sufficient
to make Amenophis forsake the old capital Thebes
and withdraw to a place l some distance to the north
of that city, where he carried on the worship of his
beloved god Aten. In the pictures of the Aten
worship which have come down to us the god appears
in the form of a disk from which proceed a number of
arms and hands that bestow life upon his worshippers.
After the death of Amenophis the cult of Aten
1 The site is marked by the ruins of Tell el-Amarua.
TITLES OF AMEN. 105
declined, and Amen resumed his sway over the minds
of the Egyptians.
Want of space forbids the insertion here of a full list
of the titles of Amen, and a brief extract from the
Papyrus of the Princess Nesi-Khensu l must suffice to
describe the estimation in which the god was held
about B.C. 1000. In this Amen is addressed as " the
holy god, the lord of all the gods, Amen-Ba, the lord
of the thrones of the world, the prince of Apt (i.e.,
Karnak), the holy soul who came into being in the
beginning, the great god who liveth by right and truth,
the first ennead who gave birth unto the other two
enneads,2 the being in whom every god existeth, the
One of One, the creator of the things which came into
being when the earth took form in the beginning, whose
births are hidden, whose forms are manifold, and whose
growth cannot be known. The holy Form, beloved
and terrible and mighty . . . the lord of space, the
mighty One of the form of Khepera, who came into
existence through Khepera, the lord of the form of
Khepera; when he came into being nothing existed
except himself. He shone upon the earth from primeval
time, he the Disk, the prince of light and radiance. . . .
When this holy god moulded himself, the heavens and
the earth were made by his heart (or mind). . . . He
1 For a hieroglyphic transcript of the hieratic text, see Maspero,
M&noires, torn, i., p. 594 ff.
1 I.e., the great, the little, and the least companies of the gods ;
each company (paut*) contained nine gods.
106 AMEN THE ONE OF ONE.
is the Disk of the Moon, the beauties whereof pervade
the heavens and the earth, the untiring and beneficent
king whose will germinateth from rising to setting,
from whose divine eyes men and women come forth,
and from whose mouth the gods do come, and [by
whom] food and meat and drink are made and pro-
vided, and [by whom] the things which exist are
created. He is the lord of time, and he traverseth
eternity ; he is the aged one who reneweth his
youth. . . . He is the Being who cannot be known,
and he is more hidden than all the gods. . . . He
giveth long life and multiplieth the years of those who
are favoured by him, he is the gracious protector of
him whom he setteth in his heart, and he is the
fashioner of eternity and everlastingness. He is the
king of the North and of the South, Amen-Ra, king
of the gods, the lord of heaven, and of earth, and of
the waters and of the mountains, with whose coming
into being the earth began its existence, the mighty
one, more princely than all the gods of the first
company."
In the above extract, it will be noticed that Amen
is called the " One of One," or the " One One," a title
which has been explained as having no reference what-
ever to the unity of God as understood in modern times :
but unless these words are intended to express the idea
of unity, what is their meaning ? It is also said that
he is "without second," and thus there is no doubt
THE CHILDREN OF HORUS. IO/
whatever that when the Egyptians declared their god
to be One, and without a second, they meant precisely
what the Hebrews and Arabs meant when they declared
their God to be One.1 Such a God was an entirely
different Being from the personifications of the powers
of nature and the existences which, for want of a better
name, have been called "gods."
But, besides Ea, there existed in very early times a
god called HORUS, whose symbol was the hawk, which,
it seems, was the first living thing worshipped by the
Egyptians; Horus was the Sun-god, like Ea, and in
later times was confounded with Horus the son of
Isis. The chief forms of Horus given in the texts
are: (1) HERU-UR (Aroueris), (2) HERU-MERTI, (3)
HERU-NUB, (4) HERU-KHENT-KHAT, (5) HERU-KHENT-
AN-MAA, (6) HERU-KHUTI, (7) HERU-SAM-TAUI, (8)
HERU-HEKENNU, (9) HERU-BEHUTET. Connected with
one of the forms of Horus, originally, were the four
gods of the cardinal points, or the "four spirits of
Horus," who supported heaven at its four corners ; their
names were HAPI, TUAMUTEF, AMSET, and QEBHSENNUF,
and they represented the north, east, south, and west
respectively. The intestines of the dead were embalmed
and placed in four jars, each being under the protection
of one of these four gods. Other important gods of
the dead are : (1) ANUBIS, the son of Ea or Osiris, who
presided over the abode of the dead, and with AP-UAT
1 See Deut., vi. 4 ; aud Koran, chapter csii.
108 MAAT AND HATHOR.
shared the dominion of the " funeral mountain " ; the
symbol of each of these gods is a jackal. (2) Hu and
SA, the children of Temu or Ka, who appear in the
boat of the sun at the creation, and later in the Judg-
ment Scene. (3) The goddess MAAT, who was asso-
ciated with Thoth, Ptah, and Khnemu in the work of
creation; the name means "straight," hence what is
right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just,
steadfast, unalterable, and the like. (4) The goddess
HET-HERT (Hathor), i.e., the " house of Horus," which
was that part of the sky where the sun rose and set.
The sycamore tree was sacred to her, and the deceased
prays to be fed by her with celestial food from out of it
(5) The goddess MEH-URT, who represented that portion
of the sky in which the sun takes his daily course ;
here it was, according to the view held at one period
at least, that the judgment of the deceased was sup-
posed to take place. (6) NEITH, the mother of SEBEK,
who was also a goddess of the eastern portion of the
sky. (7) SEKHET and BAST, who are represented with
the heads of a lion and a cat, and who were symbols
of the destroying, scorching power of the sun, and of the
gentle heat thereof, respectively. (8) SEKQ, who was a
form of Isis. (9) TA-URT (Thoueris), who was the
genetrix of the gods. (10) UATCHET, who was a form
of Hathor, and who had dominion over the northern
sky, just as NEKHEBET was mistress of the southern
sky. (11) NEHEB-KA, who was a goddess who possessed
SEBAK, HAPI, AND AMSU. 1 09
magical powers, and in some respects resembled Isis in
her attributes. (12) SEBAK, who was a form of the
Sun-god, and was in later times confounded with Sebak,
or Sebek, the friend of Set. (13) AMSU (or Mnf or
KHEM), who was the personification of the generative
and reproductive powers of nature. (14) BEB or BAB A,
who was the " firstborn son of Osiris." (15) HAPI, who
was the god of the Nile, and with whom most of the
great gods were identified.
The names of the beings who at one time or another
were called "gods" in Egypt are so numerous that
a mere list of them would fill scores of pages, and
in a work of this kind would be out of place. The
reader is, therefore, referred to Lanzone's Mitologia
Egizia, where a considerable number are enumerated
and described.
CHAPTER IV.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.
THE belief that the deeds done in the body would
be subjected to an analysis and scrutiny by the divine
powers after the death of a man belongs to the earliest
period of Egyptian civilization, and this belief remained
substantially the same in all generations. Though
we have no information as to the locality where the^
Last Judgment took place, or whether the Egyptian
soul passed into the judgment-hall immediately after
the death of the body, or after the mummification was
ended and the body was deposited in the tomb, it is
quite certain that the belief in the judgment was as
deeply rooted in the Egyptians as the belief in
immortality. There seems to have been no idea of
a general judgment when all those who had lived
in the world should receive their reward for the deeds
done in the body ; on the contrary, all the evidence
available goes to show that each soul wasMealt_with
individually, and was either permitted to pass into
the kingdom of Osiris and of the blessed, or was
destroyed straightway. Certain passages in the texts
THE EGYPTIAN UNDERWORLD. Ill
seem to suggest the idea of the existence of a place
for departed spirits wherein the souls condemned in
the judgment might dwell, but it must be remembered
that it was the enemies of Ea, the Sun-god, that
inhabited this region ; and it is impossible to imagine
that the divine powers who presided over the judgment
would permit the souls of the wicked to live after
they had been condemned and to become enemies of
those who were pure and blessed. On the other hand,
if we attach any importance to the ideas of the Copts
upon this subject, and consider that they represent
ancient beliefs which they derived from the Egyptians
traditionally, it must be admitted that the Egyptian
underworld contained some region wherein the souls
of the wicked were punished for an indefinite period.
The Coptic lives of saints and martyrs are full of
allusions to the sufferings of the damned, but whether
the descriptions of these are due to imaginings of the
mind of the Christian Egyptian or to the bias of the
scribe's opinions cannot always be said. When we
Consider that the Coptic hell was little more than
a modified form of the ancient Egyptian Amenti, or
Ainentet, it is difficult to believe that it was the name
of the Egyptian underworld only which was borrowed,
and that the ideas and beliefs concerning it which
were held by the ancient Egyptians were not at the
same time absorbed.^ Some Christian writers are most
minute in their classification of the wicked in hell,
112 PISENTIOS TALKS WITH A MUMMY.
as we may see from the following extract from the
life of Pisentios,1 Bishop of Keft, in the Vllth century
of our era. The holy man had taken refuge in a
tomb wherein a number of mummies had been piled
up, and when he had read the list of the names of
the people who had been buried there he gave it to
his disciple to replace. Then he addressed his disciple
and admonished him to do the work of God with
diligence, and warned him that every man must
become even as were the mummies which lay before
them. " And some," said he, " whose sins have been
many are now in Amend, others are in the outer
darkness, others are in pits and ditches filled with
fire, and others are in the river of fire : upon these
last no one hath bestowed rest. And others, likewise,
are in a place of rest, by reason of their good works."
When the disciple had departed, the holy man began
to talk to one of the mummies who had been a native
of the town of Erment, or Armant, and whose father
and mother had been called Agricolaos and Eustathia.
He had been a worshipper of Poseidon, and had never
heard that Christ had come into the world. "And,"
said he, "woe, woe is me because I was born into
the world. Why did not my mother's womb become
my tomb ? When it became necessary for me to die,
the Kosmokrator angels were the first to come round
about me, and they told me of all the sins which
1 Ed. Amelineau, Paris, 1887, p. 144 f.
THE TORTURES OF HELL. 113
I had committed, and they said unto me, 'Let him
that can save thee from the torments into which thou
shalt be cast come hither/ And they had in their
hands iron knives, and pointed goads which were like
unto sharp spears, and they drove them into my sides
and gnashed upon me with their teeth. When a
little time afterwards my eyes were opened I saw
death hovering about in the air in its manifold forms,
and at that moment angels who were without pity
came and dragged my wretched soul from my body,
and having tied it under the form of a black horse they
hd me away to Amenti. Woe be -unto every sinner
like unto myself who hath been born into the world !
0 my master and father, I was then delivered into the
hands of a multitude of tormentors who were without
pity and who had each a different form. Oh, what
a number of wild beasts did I see in the way ! Oh,
what a number of powers were there that inflicted
punishment upon me! And it came to pass that
when I had been cast into the outer darkness, I saw
a great ditch which was more than two hundred cubits
deep, and it was filled with reptiles ; each reptile had
seven heads, and the body of each was like unto that
of a scorpion. In this place also lived the Great
Worm, the mere sight of which terrified him that
looked thereat. In his mouth he had teeth like unto
iron stakes, and one took me and threw me to this
Worm which never ceased to eat ; then immediately
J
114 THE OUTER DARKNESS.
all the [other] beasts gathered together near him, and
when he had filled his mouth [with my flesh], all the
beasts who were round about ine filled theirs." In
answer to the question of the holy man as to whether
he had enjoyed any rest or period without suffering,
the mummy replied: "Yea, 0 my father, pity is
shown unto those who are in torment every Saturday
and every Sunday. As soon as Sunday is over we
are cast into the torments which we deserve, so that
we may forget the years which we have passed in
the world ; and as soon as we have forgotten the
grief of this torment we are cast into another which
is still more grievous."
Now, it is easy to see from the above description of
the torments which the wicked were supposed to suffer,
that the writer had in his mind some of the pictures
with which we are now familiar, thanks to the excava-
tion of tombs which has gone on in Egypt during the
last few years ; and it is also easy to see that he, in
common with many other Coptic writers, misunderstood
the purport of them. The outer darkness, i.e., the
blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of
fire, the pits of fire, the snake and the scorpion, and
such like things, all have their counterparts, or rather
originals, in the scenes which accompany the texts
which describe the passage of the sun through the
underworld during the hours of the night. Having
once misunderstood the general meaning of such scenes,
THE SAGE HERUTATAF. 115
ifc was easy to convert the foes of Ea, the Sun-god,
into the souls of the damned, and to look upon the
burning up of such foes — who were after all only certain
powers of nature personified — as the well-merited
punishment of those who had done evil upon the earth.
How far the Copts reproduced unconsciously the views
which had been held by their ancestors for thousands
of years cannot be said, but even after much allowance
has been made for this possibility, there remains still
to be explained a large number of beliefs and views
which seem to have been the peculiar product of the
Egyptian Christian imagination.
It has been said above that the idea of the judgment
of the dead is of very great antiquity in Egypt ; indeed,
it is so old that it is useless to try to ascertain the
date of the period when it first grew up. In the
earliest religious texts known to us, there are indica-
tions that the Egyptians expected a judgment, but they
are not sufficiently definite to argue from ; it is certainly
doubtful if the judgment was thought to be as thorough
and as searching then as in the later period. As far
back as the reign of Men-kau-Ea, the Mycerinus of
the Greeks, about B.C. 3600, a religious text, which
afterwards formed chapter 30u of the Book of the
Dead, was found inscribed on an iron slab, in the hand-
writing of the god Thoth, by the royal son or prince
Herulataf.1 The original purpose of the composition
1 See CAoj ttrs of Coming Forth ly Day, Translation, p. 80.
Il6 ANTIQUITY t)F RELIGIOUS TEXTS.
of this text cannot be said, but there is little doubt that
it was intended to benefit the deceased in the judgment,
and, if we translate its title literally, it was intended
to prevent his heart from " falling away from him in
the underworld." In the first part of it the deceased,
after adjuring his heart, says, " May naught stand up
to oppose me in the judgment ; may there be no
opposition to me in th^ presence of the sovereign
princes ; may there be no parting of thee from me in
the presence of him that keepeth the Balance ! . . .
May the officers of the court of Osiris (in Egyptian
Shenii), who form the conditions of the lives of -men,
not cause my name to stink ! Let [the judgment] be
satisfactory unto me, let the hearing be satisfactory
nnto me, and let me have joy of heart at the weighing
of words. Let not that which is false be uttered against
me before the Great God, the Lord of Amentet."
Now, although the papyrus upon whiqh this state-
ment and prayer are found was written about two
thousand years after Men-kau-Ra reigned, there is no
doubt that they were copied from texts which were
themselves copied at a much earlier period, and that
the story of the finding of the text inscribed upon an
iron slab is contemporary with its actual discovery by
Herutataf. • It is not necessary to inquire here whether
the word " find " (in Egyptian qem) means a genuine
discovery or not, but it is clear that those who had
the papyrus copied saw no absurdity or impropriety
THE DECEASED AND HIS HEART. 1 1/
in ascribing the text to the period of Men-kau-Ba.
Another text, which afterwards also became a chapter
of the Book of the Dead, tinder the title " Chapter of
not letting the heart of the deceased be driven away
from him in the underworld," was inscribed on a coffin
of the Xlth dynasty, about B.C. 2500, and in it we
have the following petition : " May naught stand up
to -oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords
of the trial (literally, ' lords of things ') ; let it not be
said of me and of that which I have done, ' He hath
done deeds against that which is very right and true ' ;
may naught be against me in the presence of the
Great God, jthe Lord of Amentet."1 From these
passages we are right in assuming that before the end
of the IVth dynasty the idea of being " weighed in the
balance" was already evolved; that the religious
schools of Egypt had assigned to a god, the duty of
watching the balance when cases were being tried ;
that this-weighing in the balance took place in the.
presence of the beings called Shenit, who were believed
to control the acts and deeds of men ; that it was
thought t that evidence unfavourable to the deceased
might be produced by his foes at the judgment ; that
the weighing took place in the presence of the Great
God, the Lord of Amentet ; and that the heart of the
deceased might fail him either physically or morally.
The deceased addresses his heart, calling it his " mother,"
1 Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 73.
Il8 THE GOD KHNEMU.
and next identifies it with his ha or double, coupling
the mention of the Jca with the name of fhe god
Khnemu: these facts are exceedingly important, for
they "prove that the deceased considered his heart to
be the source of his life and being, and the mention of
the god Khnemu takes the date of the composition
back to a period coaeval with the beginnings of religious
thought in Egypt. It was the god Khnemu who
assisted Thoth in performing the commands of God at
the creation, and one very interesting sculpture at
Philse shows Khnemu in the act of fashioning man
upon a potter's wheel. The deceased,, in mentioning'
Khnemu's name, seems to invoke his aid in the judg-
ment as fashioner of man and as the being who is in
some respects responsible for the manner of his life
upon earth.
In Chapter 30A there is no mention made of the
"guardian of the balance," and the deceased says,
" May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in
the presence of the lords of things ! " The " lords of
things " may be either the " lords of creation," i.e., the
great cosmic gods, or the " lords of the affairs [of the
hall of judgment]," i.e., of the trial. In this chapter
the deceased addresses not Khnemu, but " the gods
who dwell in the divine clouds, and who are exalted
by reason of their sceptres," that is to say, the four
gods of the cardinal points, called Mestha, Hapi
Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf, who also presided over the
THE DECEASED AND HIS HEART. 119
chief internal organs of the human body. Here, again,
it seems as if the deceased was anxious to make these
gods in some way responsible for the deeds done by
him in his life, inasmuch as they presided over the
organs that were the prime movers of his actions,
In any case, he considers them in the light of inter-
cessors, for he beseeches them to " speak fair words
unto Ea " on his behalf, and to make him to prosper
before the goddess Nehebka. In this case, the favour
of Ea, the Sun-god, the visible emblem of the
almighty and eternal God, is sought for, and also
that of the serpent goddess, whose attributes are not
.yet accurately defined, but who has much to do with
the destinies of the dead. No mention whatever is
. made of the Lord of Amentet — Osiris.
Before we pass to the consideration of the manner
. in which the judgment is depicted upon the finest
examples of the illustrated papyri, reference must be
made to 6n interesting vignette in the papyri of
Nebseni l and Amen-neb.a In both of these papyri we
see a figure of the deceased himself being wejghed in
the balance against his own heart in the presence of
the god Osiris. It seems probable that a belief was
current at one time in ancient Egypt concerning the
possibility of the body being weighed against the heart,
with the view of finding out if the former had obeyed
the dictates of the latter ; be that as it may, however,
1 British Museum, No. 9900. * British Museum, No. 9964.
120 ANTIQUITY OF BELIEF IN A JUDGMENT.
it is quites certain that this remarkable variant of the
vignette of Chapter 30u had some special meaning,
and, as ifr occurs in two papyri which date from the
XVIIIth dynasty, we are justified in assuming that it
represents a belief belonging to a much older period.
The judgment here depicted must, v in any case, be
different from that which forms such a striking scene
in the later illustrated papyri of the XVIIIth and
following dynasties.
We have now proved that the idea of the judgment
of the dead was accepted in religious writings as early
as the IVth dynasty, about B.C. 3600, but we' have to
wait nearly two thousand years before we find it in
picture form. Certain scenes which are found in the
Book of the Dead as vignettes accompanying certain
texts or chapters, e.g., the Fields of Hetep, or the Elysian
Fields, are exceedingly old, and are found on sarco-
phagi of the Xlth and Xllth dynasties; but the
earliest picture known of the Judgment Scene is not
older, than the XVIIIth dynasty. In the oldest
Theban papyri of the Book of the Dead no Judgment
Scene is forthcomingj and when we find it wanting
in such authoritative documents fl,s the Papyrus of
Nebseni and that of Nu,1 we must take it for granted
that there was some reason for its omission. In the
great illustrated papyri in which the Judgment Scene
is given in full, it will be noticed that it comes at the
1 British Museum, No. 10,477.
HYMN SAID TO RA AT THE JUDGMENT. 121
beginning of the work, and that it is preceded by
hymns and by a vignette. Thus, in the Papyrus of
Ani,1 we have a hymn to Ka, followed by a vignette
representing the sunrise, and a hymn to Osiris ; and
in the Papyrus of Hunefer,3 though the hymns are
different, the arrangement is the same. We are
justified, then, in assuming that the hymns and the
Judgment Scene together formed an introductory
section to the Book of the Dead, and it is possible
that it indicates the existence of the belief, at least
during the period of the greatest power of the priests
of Amen, from B.C. 1700 to B.C. 800, that the judgment
of the dead for "the deeds done in the body preceded
the admission of the dead into the kingdom of Osiris.
As the hymns which accompany the Judgment Scene
are fine examples of a high class of devotional com-
positions, a few translations from some of them are here
given. •
HYMN TO lil.8
"Homage to thee, 0 thou who risest in Nu,4 and
who at thy manifestation dost make the world bright
with light; the whole company of the gods sing
hymns of praise unto thee after thou hast come forth.
1 British Museum, No. 10,470.
• British Museum, No. 9901.
• See Tlie Chapteri of Coming Fvrth by Day, p 7.
• The eky personified.
122 HYMN SAID TO RA AT THE JUDGMENT.
The divine Merti1 goddesses who minister unto thee
cherish thee as King of the North and South, thou
beautiful and beloved Man-child. When thou risest
men and women live. The nations rejoice in thee,
and the Souls of Annu2 (Heliopolis) sing unto thee
songs of joy. The Souls of the city of Pe,3 and the
Souls of the city of Nekhen 4 exalt thee, the apes of
dawn adore thee, and all beasts and cattle praise thee
with one accord. The goddess Seba overthrowetli
thine enemies, therefore hast thou rejoicing in thy
boat; thy mariners are content thereat. Thou hast
attained unto the Atet boat,5 and thy heart swelleth
with joy. 0 lord of the gods, when thou didst create
them they shouted for joy. The azure goddess Nut
doth compass thee on every side, and the god Nu
floodeth thee with his rays of light. 0 cast thou thy
light upon me and let me see thy beauties, and when
thou goest forth over the earth I will sing praises
unto thy fair face. Thou risest in heaven's horizon,
and thy disk is adored when it resteth upon the
mountain to give life unto the world."
" Thou risest, thou risest, and thou comest forth
from the god Nu. Thou dost renew thy youth, and
1 Literally, the Two Eyes, i.e., Isis and Ntphthys,
2 I.e., Ra, Shu, and Tefnut.
3 Part of the city of Buto (Per-Uatchit). The souls of Pe were
Horus, Mestha, Hapi.
4 I.e., Horus, Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf.
* I.e., the boat in which the sun travels until noon.
HYMN SAID TO OSIRIS AT THE JUDGMENT. 123
thou dost set thyself in the place where thou wast
yesterday. O thou divine Child, who didst create
thyself, I am not able [to describe] thee. Thou hast
come with thy risings, and thou hast made heaven and
earth resplendent with thy rays of pure emerald light.
The land of Punt l is stablished [to give] the perfumes
which thou smellest with thy nostrils. Thou risest,
O marvellous Being, in heaven, and the two serpent-
goddesses, Merti, are stablished upon thy brow. Thou
art the giver of laws, O thou lord of the world and
of all the inhabitants thereof ; all the gods adore thee."
HYMN TO Osms.8
" Glory be to thee, 0 Osiris Un-nefer, the great god
within Abydos, king of eternity and lord of everlasting-
ness, the god who passest through millions of years in thy
existence. Thou art the eldest son of the womb of Nut,
thou wast engendered by Seb, the Ancestor of the gods,
thou art the lord of the Crowns of the North and of the
South, and of the lofty white crown. As Pririce of
the gods and of men thou hast received the crook, and
the whip, and the dignity of thy divine fathers. Let
thy heart which is in the mountain of Ament 8 be con-
tent, for thy son Horus is stablished upon thy throne.
Thou art crowned the lord of Tattu (Mendes) and ruler
1 I.e., the land on each side of the Red Sea and North-east Africa.
2 See The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, p. 11.
' I.e., the underworld.
124 HYMN SAID TO OSIRIS AT THE JUDGMENT.
in Abtu (Abydos). Through thee the world waxeth
green in triumph before the might of Neb-er-teher.1
Thou leadest in thy train that which is, and that which
is not yet, in thy name of ' Ta-her-sta-nef ; ' thou to west
along the earth in thy name of ' Seker ; ' thou art
exceedingly mighty and most terrible in thy name
of ' Osiris ; ' thou endurest for ever and for ever in thy
name of ' Un-nefer.' "
"Homage to thee, O thou King of kings, Lord of
lords, Prince of Princes ! From the womb of Nut thou
hast ruled the world and the underworld. Thy body
is of bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure
blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee.
0 thou god An, who hast had existence for millions of
years, who pervadest all things with thy body, who art
beautiful in countenance in the Land of Holiness (i.e.,
the underworld), grant thou to me splendour in heaven,
might upon earth, and triumph in the underworld.
Grant thou that I may sail down to Tattu like a living
soul, and up to Abtu like the phoenix ; and grant that
1 may enter in and come forth from the pylons of the
lands of the underworld without let or hindrance. May
loaves of bread be given unto me in the house of cool-
ness, and offerings of food and drink in Annu (Helio-
polis), and a homestead for ever and for ever in the
Field of Eeeds z with wheat and barley therefor."
1 A name of Osiris.
* A division of the " Fields of Peace " or Elysian Fields.
PETITION OF HUNEFER. 12$
In the long and important hymn in the Papyrus of
Hunefer1 occurs the following petition, which is put
into the mouth of the deceased : —
" Grant that I may follow in the train of thy Majesty
even as I did upon earth. Let my soul be called [into
the presence], and let it be found by the side of the
lords of right and truth. I have come into the City of
God, the region which existed in primeval time, with
[my] soul, and with [my] double, and with [my]
translucent form, to dwell in this land. The God
thereof is the lord of right and truth, he is the lord of
the tchefau food of the gods, and he is most holy. His
land draweth unto itself every land ; the South cometh
sailing down the river thereto, and the North, steered
thither by winds, cometh daily to make festival therein
according to the command of the God thereof, who is
the Lord of peace therein. And doth he not say, ' The
happiness thereof is a care unto me ' ? The god who
dwelleth therein worketh right and truth; unto him
that doeth these things he giveth old age, and to him
that folio weth after them rank and honour, until at
length he attaineth unto a happy funeral and burial in
the Holy Land " (i.e., the underworld).
The deceased, having recited these words of prayer
and adoration to Ka, the symbol of Almighty God, and
to his son Osiris, next " cometh forth into the Hall of
Maati, that he may be separated from every sin which
1 See The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, pp. 343-346.
126 THE HALL OF THE MA ATI.
he hath done, and may behold the faces of the gods." l
From the earliest times the Maati were the two
goddesses Isis and Nephthys, and they were so called
because they represented the ideas of straightness,
integrity, righteousness, what is right, the truth, and
such like ; the word Maat originally meant a rneasuiiug
reed or stick. They were supposed either to sit in the
Hall of Maat outside the shrine of Osiris, or to stand
by the side of this god in the shrine ; an example of
the former position will be seen in the Papyrus of Ani
(Plate 31), and of the latter in the Papyrus of Hunefer
(Plate 4). The original idea of the Hall of Maat or
Maati was that it contained forty-two gods, a fact which
we may see from the following passage in the Intro-
duction to Chapter CXXV. of the Book of the Dead.
The deceased says to Osiris : —
" Homage to thee, 0 thou great God, thou Lord of
the two Maat goddesses ! 1 have come to thee, O my
Lord, and I have made myself to come hither that I
may behold thy beauties. I know thee, and I know
thy name, and I know the names of the two and forty
gods who live with thee in this Hall of Maati, who live
as watchers of sinners and who feed upon their blood
on that day when the characters (or lives) of men are
reckoned up (or taken into account) in the presence of
the god Un-nefer. Verily, God of the Eekhti-Merti
1 Thia quotation is from the title of Chapter CXXV. of the Book of
the Dead.
THE FORTY-TWO GODS. I2/
(i.e., the twin sisters of the two eyes), the Lord of the
city of Maati is thy name. Verily I have come to
thee, and I have brought Maat unto thee, and I have
destroyed wickedness."
The deceased then goes on to enumerate the sins
or offences which he has not committed, and he con-
cludes by saying : " I am pure ; I am pure ; I am
pure ; I am pure. My purity is the purity of the
great Bennu which is in the city of Suten-henen
(Heracleopolis), for, behold, I am the nostrils of the
God of breath, who maketh all mankind to live on the
day when the Eye of Ea is full in Annu (Heliopolis)
at the end of the second month of the season PERT.1
I have seen the Eye of Ea when it was full in Aniiu ; a
therefore let not evil befall me either in this land
or in this Hall of Maati, because I, even I, know the
names of the gods who are therein."
Now as the gods who live in the Hall of Maat with
Osiris are two and forty in number, we should expect
that two and forty sins or offences would be mentioned
in the addresses which the deceased makes to them ;
but this is not the case, for the sins enumerated in the
Introduction never reach this number. In the great
illustrated papyri of the XVIIIth and XlXth dynasties
we find, however, that notwithstanding the fact that
1 I.e., the last day of the sixth month of the Egyptian year, calle<l
by the Copts Mekhir.
* The allusion Here seems to be to the Summer or Winter Solstice.
128 THE HALL OF THE MAATI.
a large number of sins, which the deceased declares
he has not committed, are mentioned in the Introduc-
tion, the scribes and artists added a series of negative
statements, forty-two in number, which they set out in
a tabular form. This, clearly, is an attempt to make the
sins mentioned equal in number to the gods of the Hall
of Maat, and it would seem as if they preferred to
compose an entirely new form of this section of the one
hundred and twenty-fifth chapter to making any attempt
to add to or alter the older section. The artists, then,
depicted a Hall of Maat, the doors of which are wide
open, and the cornice of which is formed of uraei and
feathers, symbolic of Maat. Over the middle of the
cornice is a seated deity with hands extended, the
right over the Eye of Horus, and the left over a pool
At the end of the Hall are seated the goddesses of
Maat, i.e., Isis and Nephthys, the deceased adoring Osiris
who is seated on a throne, a balance with the heart
of the deceased in one scale, and the feather, symbolic
of Maat, in the other, and Thoth painting a large
feather. In this Hall sit the forty-two gods, and as
the deceased passes by each, the deceased addresses
him by his name and at the same time declares that
he has not committed a certain sin. An examination
of the different papyri shows that the scribes often
made mistakes in writing this list of gods and list
of sins, and, as the result, the deceased is made to
recite before one god the confession which strictly
EGYPTIAN RELIGION AND MORALITY. I2Q
belongs to another. Inasmuch as the deceased always
says after pronouncing the name of each god, " I
have not done " such and such a sin, the whole group
of addresses has been called the " Negative Confession."
The fundamental ideas of religion and morality which
underlie this Confession are exceedingly old, and we
may gather from it with tolerable clearness what the
ancient Egyptian believed to constitute his duty
towards God and towards his neighbour.
It is impossible to explain the fact that forty-two
gods only are addressed, and equally so to say why this
number was adopted. Some have believed that the
forty-two gods represented each a norne of Egypt, and
much support is given to this view by the fact that
most of the lists of nomes make the number to be
forty-two; but then, again, the lists, do not agree.
The classical authors differ also, for by some of these
writers the nomes are said to be thirty-six in number,
and by others forty-six are enumerated. These differ-
ences may, however, be easily explained, for the central
administration may at any time have added to or taken
from the number of nomes for fiscal or other considera-
tions, and we shall probably be correct in assuming
that at the time the Negative Confession was drawn
up in the tabular form in which we meet it in the
XVIIIth dynasty the nomes were forty-two in number.
Support is also lent to this view by the fact that
the earliest form of the Confession, which forms the
130 THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
Introduction to Chapter CXXV., mentions less than
forty sins. Incidentally we may notice that the forty-
two gods are subservient to Osiris, and that they only
occupy a subordinate position in the Hall of Judgment,
for it is the result of the weighing of the heart of the
deceased in the balance that decides his future. Before
passing to the description of the Hall of Judgment
where the balance is set, it is necessary to give a
rendering of the Negative Confession which, presumably,
the deceased recites before his heart is weighed in the
balance ; it is made from the Papyrus of Nu.1
1. " Hail Usekh-nemtet (i.e., Long of strides), who
comest forth from Annu (Heliopolis), I have not done
iniquity.
2. " Hail Hept-seshet (i.e., Embraced by flame), who
comest forth from Kher-aba,2 I have not robbed with
violence.
3. " Hail Fenti (i.e., Nose), who comest forth from
Khemennu (Hermopolis), I have not done violence
to any mau.
4. " Hail Am-khaibitu (i.e., Eater of shades), who
comest forth from the Qereret (i.e., the cavern where the
Nile rises), I have not committed theft.
5. " Hail Neha-hra (i.e., Stinking face), who comest
forth from Restau, I have slain neither man nor woman.
6. "Hail Rereti (i.e., Double Lion-god), who comest
forth from heaven, I have not made light the bushel.
1 British Museum, No. 10,477. * A city near Memphis.
THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION. 131
7. "Hail Maata-f-em-seshet (i.e., Fiery eyes), who
comest forth from Sekhem (Letopolis), I have not
acted deceitfully.
8. " Hail Neba (i.e., Flame), who comest forth and
retreatest, I have not purloined the things which
belong unto God.
9. " Hail Set-qesu (i.e., Crusher of bones), who comest
forth from Suten-henen (Heracleopolis), I have not
uttered falsehood.
10. " Hail Khemi (i.e., Overthrower), who comest
forth from Shetait (i.e., the hidden place), I have not
carried off goods by force.
11. " Hail Uatch-nesert (i.e., Vigorous of Flame), who
comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah (Memphis), I have
not uttered vile (or evil) words.
12. " Hail Hra-f-ha-f (i.e., He whose face is behind
him), who comest forth from the cavern and the deep,
I have not carried off food by force.
13. " Hail Qerti (i.e., the double Nile source), who
comest forth from the Underworld, I have not acted
deceitfully.
14. " Hail Ta-ret (i.e., Fiery-foot), who comest forth
out of the darkness, I have not eaten my heart (i.e. lost
my temper and become angry).
15. " Hail Hetch-abehu (i.e., Shining teeth), who
comest forth from Ta-she (i.e., the Fayyum), I have
invaded no [man's land].
16. " Hail Am-senef (i.e., Eater of blood), who comest
132 THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
forth from the house of the block, I have not slaughtered
animals which are the possessions of God.
17. " Hail Am-besek (i.e., Eater of entrails), who
comest forth from Mabet, I have not laid waste the
lands which have been ploughed.
18. " Hail Neb-Maat (i.e., Lord of Maat), who comest
forth from the city of the two Maati, I have not pried
into matters to make mischief.
19. " Hail Thenemi (i.e., Ketreater), who comest
forth from Bast (i.e., Bubastis), I have not set my mouth
in motion against any man.
20. " Hail Anti, who comest forth from Annu
(Heliopolis), I have not given way to wrath without
due cause.
21. " Hail Tututef, who comest forth from the nome
of Ad, I have not committed fornication, and I have
not committed sodomy.
22. "Hail Uamemti, who comest forth from the
house of slaughter, I have not polluted myself.
23. " Hail Maa-ant-f (i.e., Seer of what is brought
to him), who comest forth from the house of the god
Amsu, I have not lain with the wife of a man.
24. " Hail Her-seru, who comest forth from Nehatu,
I have not made any man to be afraid.
25. " Hail Neb-Sekhem, who comest forth from the
Lake of Kaui, I have not made my speech to burn
with anger.1
1 Literally, " I have not been Lot of mouth."
THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION. 133
26. " Hail Seshet-kheru (i.e., Orderer of speech), who
comest forth from Urit, I have not made myself deaf
unto the words of right and truth.
27. "Hail Nekhen (i.e., Babe), who comest forth
from the Lake of Heqat, I have not made another
person to weep.
28. " Hail Kenemti, who comest forth from Kenemet,
I have not uttered blasphemies.
29. "Hail An-hetep-f (i.e., Bringer of his offering),
who comest forth from Sau, I have not acted with
violence.
30. " Hail Ser-kheru (i.e., Disposer of Speech), who
comest forth from Unsi, I have not hastened my heart.1
31. "Hail Neb-hrau (i.e., Lord of Faces), who comest
forth from Netchefet, I have not pierced (?) my skin (?),
and I have not taken vengeance on the god.
32. "Hail Serekhi, who comest forth from Uthent,
I have not multiplied my speech beyond what should
be said.
33. " Hail Neb-abui (i.e., Lord of horns), who comest
forth from Sauti, I have not committed fraud, [and
I have not] looked upon evil.
34. "Hail Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Ptah-
het-ka (Memphis), I have never uttered curses against
the king.
35. "Hail Tem-sep, who comest forth from Tattu,
I have not fouled running water.
1 I.e., acted without due consideration.
134 THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION.
36. " Hail Ari-em-ab-f, who comest forth from Tebti,
I have not exalted my speech.
37. "Hail Ahi, who comest forth from Nu, I have
not uttered curses against God.
38. " Hail Uatch-rekhit [who comest forth from his
shrine (?)], I have not behaved with insolence.
39. "Hail Neheb-nefert, who comest forth from his
temple, I have not made distinctions.1
40. "Hail Neheb-kau, who comest forth from thy
cavern, I have not increased my wealth except by
means of such things as are mine own possessions.
41. " Hail Tcheser-tep, who comest forth from thy
shrine, I have not uttered curses against that which
belongeth to God and is with me.
42. "Hail An-a-f (i.e., Bringer of his arm), [who
comest forth from Aukert], I have not thought scorn
of the god of the city."
A brief examination of this " Confession " shows that
the Egyptian code of morality was very comprehensive,
and it would be very hard to find an act, the com-
mission of which would be reckoned a sin when the
" Confession " was put together, which is not included
under one or other part of it. The renderings of the
words for certain sins are not always definite or exact,
because we do not know the precise idea which the
framer of this remarkable document had. The deceased
states that he has neither cursed God, nor thought scorn
1 J.c., I have not been guilty of favouritism.
THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART. 135
of the god of his city, nor cursed the king, nor com-
mitted theft of any kind, nor murder, nor adultery, nor
sodomy, nor crimes against the god of generation ; he
has not been imperious or haughty, or violent, or
wrathful, or hasty in deed, or a hypocrite, or an accepter
of persons, or a blasphemer, or crafty, or avaricious, or
fraudulent, or deaf to pious words, or a party to evil
actions, or proud, or puffed up ; he has terrified no man,
he has not cheated in the market-place, and he has
neither fouled the public watercourse nor laid waste
the tilled land of the community. This is, in brief, the
confession which the deceased makes ; and the next act
in the Judgment Scene is weighing the heart of the
deceased in the scales. As none of the oldest papyri of
the Book of the Dead supplies us with a representation
of this scene, we must have recourse to the best of the
illustrated papyri of the latter half of the XVIIIth
and of the XlXth dynasties. The details of the Judg-
ment Scene vary greatly in various papyri, but the
essential parts of it are always preserved. The follow-
ing is the description of the judgment of Ani, as it
appears in his wonderful papyrus preserved in jthe
British Museum.
In the underworld, and in that portion of it which is
called the Hall of Maati, is, set a balance wherein the
heart of the deceased is to be weighed. The beam is
suspended by a ring upon a projection from the standard
of the balance made in the form of the feather which
136 THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART.
is the symbol of Maat, or what is right and true. The
tongue of the balance is fixed to the beam, and when
this is exactly level, the tongue is as straight as the
standard ; if either end of the beam inclines down-
wards the tongue cannot remain in a perpendicular
position. It must be distinctly understood that the
heart which was weighed in the one scale was not
expected to make the weight which was in the other to
kick the beam, for all that was asked or required of the
deceased was that his heart should balance exactly the
symbol of the law. The standard was sometimes sur-
mounted by a human head wearing the feather of Maat ;
sometimes by the head of a jackal, the animal sacred
to Anubis ; and sometimes by the head of an ibis, the
bird sacred to Thoth; in the Papyrus of Ani a dog-
headed -ape, the associate of Thoth, sits on the top of
the standard. ' In some papyri (e.g., those of Ani 1 and
Hunefer 2), in addition to Osiris, the king of the under-
world and judge of the dead, the gods of his cycle or
company appear as witnesses of the judgment. In the
Papyrus of the priestess Anhai 8 in the British Museum
the great and the little companies of the gods appear as
witnesses, but the artist was so careless that instead of
nine gods in each group he painted six in one and five
in the other. In the Turin papyrus4 we see the whole
of the forty-two gods, to whom the deceased recited the
1 About B.C. 1500. * About B.C. 1370. * About B.C. 1000.
4 Written in the Ptolemaic period.
THE GODS IN JUDGMENT. 139
"Negative Confession," seated in the judgment-hall.
The gods present at the weighing of Ani's heart are —
1. KA-HARMACHIS, hawk-headed, the Sun-god of the
dawn and of noon.
2. TEMU, the Sun-god of the evening, the great god
of Heliopolis. He is depicted always in human form
and with the face of a man, a fact which proves that he
had at a very early period passed through all the forms
in which gods are represented, and had arrived at that
of a man. He has upon his head the crowns of the
South and North.
3. SHU, man-headed, the son of Ka and Hathor, the
personification of the sunlight.
4. TEFNUT, lion-headed, the twin-sister of Shu, the
personification of moisture.
5. SEB, man-headed, the son of Shu, the personifica-
tion of the earth.
6. NUT, woman-headed, the female counterpart of the
gods Nu and Seb; she was the personification of the
primeval water, and later of the sky.
7. Isis, woman-headed, the sister-wife of Osiris, and
mother of Horus.
8. NEPHTHYS, woman-headed, the sister-wife of Osiris,
and mother of Anubis.
9. HOEUS, the "great god," hawk-headed, whose
worship was probably the oldest in Egypt.
10. HATHOR, woman-headed, the personification of
that portion of the sky where the sun rose and set.
I4O THE "EATER OF THE DEAD."
11. Hu, man-headed, and
12. SA, also man-headed ; these gods are present in
the boat of Ra in the scenes which depict the creation.
On one side of the balance kneels the god Anubis,
jackal-headed, who holds the weight of the tongue of
the balance in his right hand, and behind him stands
Thoth, the scribe of the gods, ibis-headed, holding in his
hands a reed wherewith to write down the result of the
weighing. Near him is seated the tri-formed beast
Am-mit, the " Eater of the Dead," who waits to devour
the heart of Ani should it be found to be light. In the
Papyrus of Neb-qet at Paris this beast is seen lying by
the side of a lake of fire, at each corner of which is
seated a dog-headed ape ; this lake is also- seen in
Chapter CXXVI. of the Book of the Dead. The gods
who are seated before a table of offerings, and Anubis,
and Thoth, and Am-mit, are the beings who conduct
the case, so to speak, against Ani. On the other side
of the balance stand Ani and his wife Thuthu with
their heads reverently bent ; they are depicted in human
form, and wear garments and ornaments similar to those
which they wore upon earth. His soul, in the form of
a man-headed hawk standing upon a pylon, is present,
also a man-headed, rectangular object, resting upon a
pylon, which has frequently been supposed to represent
the deceased in an embryonic state. In the Papyrus
of Anhai two of these objects appear, one on each side
of the balance ; they are described as Shai and Eenenet,
THE GODDESSES OF DESTINY AND FORTUNE. 141
two words which are translated by " Destiny " and
" Fortune " respectively. It is most probable, as the
reading of the name of the object is Meskhenet, and as
the deity Meskhenet represents sometimes both Shai and
Renenet, that the artist intended the object to represent
both deities, even though we find the god Shai standing
below it close to the standard of the balance. Close by
the soul stand two goddesses called Meskhenet and
Eenenet respectively; the former is, probably, one of
the four goddesses who assisted at the resurrection of
Osiris, and the latter the personification of Fortune,
which has already been included under the Meskhenet
object above, the personification of Destiny.
It will be remembered that Meskhenet accompanied
Isis, Nephthys, Beget, and Khnemu to the house of the
lady Rut-Tettet, who was about to bring forth three
children. When these deities arrived, having changed
their forms into those of women, they found Ra-user
standing there. And when they had made music for
him, he said to them, " Mistresses, there is a woman
in travail here;" and they replied, "Let us see her,
for we know how to deliver a woman." Ra-user then
brought them into the house, and the goddesses shut
themselves in with the lady Rut-Tettet. Isis took
her place before her, and Nephthys behind her, whilst
Heqet hastened the .birth of the children; as each
child was born Meskhenet stepped up to him and
said, " A king who shall have dominion over the whole
142 THE DECEASED'S ADDRESS TO HIS HEART.
land," and the god Khnemu bestowed health upon
his limbs.1 Of these five gods, Isis, Nephthys, Mesk-
henet, Heqet, and Khnemu, the first three are present
at the judgment of Ani ; Khnemu is mentioned in Ani's
address to his heart (see below), and only Heqet is
unrepresented.
As the weighing of his heart is about to take place
Ani says, "My heart, my mother! My heart, my
mother ! My heart whereby I came into being ! May
naught stand up to oppose me in the judgment ; may
there be no opposition to me in the presence of the
sovereign princes ; may there be no parting of thee
from me in the presence of him that keepeth the
Balance ! Thou art my ka, the dweller in my body ;
the god Khnemu who knitteth and strengthened! my
limbs. Mayest thou come forth into the place of
happiness whither we go., May the princes of the
court of Osiris, who order the circumstances of the
lives of men, not cause my name to stink." Some
papyri add, "Let it be satisfactory unto us, and let
the listening be satisfactory unto us, and let there
be joy of heart unto us at the weighing of words. Let
not that which is false be uttered against me before
the great god, the lord of Amentet ! Verily how great
shalt thou be when thou risest in triumph ! "
The tongue of the balance having been examined
1 See Erman, Weticar Papyrus, Berlin, 1830, hieroglyphic tran-
script, plates 9 and 10.
THE SPEECH OF THOTH. 143
by Atmbis, and the ape having indicated to his associate
Thoth that the beam is exactly straight, and that the
heart, therefore, counterbalances the feather symbolic
of Maat (i.e., right, truth, law, etc.), neither outweighing
nor under weighing it, Thoth writes down the result,
and then makes the following address to the gods : —
" Hear ye this judgment. The heart of Osiris hath
in very truth been weighed, and his soul hath stood
as a witness for him ; it hath been found true by trial
in the Great Balance. There hath not been found any
wickedness in him; he hath not wasted the offerings
in the temples ; he hath not done harm by his deeds ;
and he spread abroad no evil reports while he was
upon earth."
In answer to this report the company of the gods,
who are styled "the great company of the gods,"
reply, "That which cometh forth from thy mouth,
O Thoth, who dwellest in Khemennu (Hermopolis),
is confirmed. Osiris, the scribe Ani, triumphant, is
holy and righteous. He hath not sinned, neither hath
he done evil against us. The Devourer Ain-mit shall
not be allowed to prevail over him, and meat-offerings
and entrance into the presence of the god Osiris shall
be granted unto him, together with a homestead for ever
in the Field of Peace, as unto the followers of Horus." l
1 These are a class of mythological beings, or demi-gods, who
already in the Vth dynasty were supposed to recite prayero on behalf
of the deceased, and to assist Horus and Set in performiug funeral
ceremonies. See my Papyrus of Ani, p. cxxv.
144 THE DECEASED MADE " TRUE OP VOICE."
Here we notice at once that the deceased is identified
with Osiris, the god and judge of the dead, and that
they have bestowed upon him the god's own name ;
the reason of this is as follows. The friends of the
deceased performed for him all the ceremonies and
rites which were performed for Osiris by Isis and
Nephthys, and it was assumed that, as a result, the
same things which took place in favour of Osiris
would also happen on behalf of the deceased, and that
in fact, the deceased would become the counterpart
of Osiris. Everywhere in the texts of the Book of
the Dead the deceased is identified with Osiris, from
B.C. 3400 to the Eoman period. Another point to
notice is the application of the words mad Tcheru to
the deceased, a term which I have, for want of a better
word, rendered "triumphant." These words actually
mean " true of voice " or " right of word," and indicate
that the person to whom they are applied has acquired
the power of using his voice in such a way that when
the invisible beings are addressed by him they will
render unto him all the service which he has obtained
the right to demand. It is well known that in ancient
times magicians and sorcerers were wont to address
spirits or demons in a peculiar tone of voice, and that
all magical formulae were recited in a similar manner ;
the use of the wrong sound or tone of voice would
result in the most disastrous consequences to the
speaker, and perhaps in death. The deceased had
WORDS OF POWER. 145
to make his way through a number of regions in the
underworld, and to pass through many series of halls,
the doors of which were guarded by beings who were
prepared, unless properly addressed, to be hostile to
the new-comer; he also had need to take passage in
a boat, and to obtain the help of the gods and of the
powers of the various localities wherein he wanted to
travel if he wished to pass safely into the place where
he would be. The Book of the Dead provided him
with all the texts and formulae which he would have
to recite to secure this result, but unless the words
contained in them were pronounced in a proper manner,
and said in a proper tone of voice, they would have
no effect upon the powers of the underworld. The
term mad kheru is applied but very rarely to the
living, but commonly to the dead, and indeed the dead
needed most the power which these words indicated.
In the case of Ani, the gods, having accepted the
favourable report of the result obtained by weighing
Ani's heart by Thoth, style him maa kheru,, which is
equivalent to conferring upon him power to overcome
all opposition, of every kind, which he may meet.
Henceforth every door will open at his command, every
god will hasten to obey immediately Ani has uttered
his name, and those whose duty it is to provide
celestial food for the beatified will do so for him when
once the order has been given. Before passing on
to other matters it is interesting to note that the term
L
146 OSIRIS IN HIS SHRINE.
mad kheru is not applied to Ani'by himself in the
Judgment Scene, nor by Thoth, the scribe of the gods,
nor by Horus when he introduces him to Osiris ; it
is only the gods who can make a man mad kheru, and
thereby he also escapes from the Devourer.
The judgment ended, Horus, the son of Isis, who
has assumed all the attributes of his father Osiris,
takes Ani's left hand in his right and leads him up to
the shrine wherein the god Osiris is seated. The god
wears the white crown with feathers, and he holds in
his hands a sceptre, a crook, and whip, or flail, which
typify sovereignty and dominion. His throne is a
tomb, of which the bolted doors and the cornice of uraei
may be seen painted on the side. At the back of his
neck hangs the menat or symbol of joy and happiness ;
on his right hand stands Nephthys, and on his left
stands Isis. Before him, standing on a lotus flower,
are the four children of Horus, Mestha, Hapi, Tuamutef,
and Qebhsennuf, who presided over and protected the
intestines of the dead; close by hangs the skin of a
bull with which magical ideas seem to have been
associated. The top of the shrine in which the god
sits is surmounted by uraei, wearing disks on their
heads, and the cornice also is similarly decorated. In
several papyri the god is seen standing up in the
shrine, sometimes with and sometimes without the
goddesses Isis and Nephthys. In the Papyrus of
Hunefer we find a most interesting variant of this
5* s
E
i-l
II
ADDRESS OF THE DECEASED TO OSIRIS. 149
portion of the scene, for the throne of Osiris rests
upon, or in, water. This reminds us of the passage
in the one hundred and twenty-sixth chapter of the
Book of the Dead in which the god Thoth says to the
deceased, " Who is he whose roof is of fire, whose walls
are living uraei, and the floor of whose house is a
stream of running water ? Who is he, I say ? " The
deceased answers, " It is Osiris," and the god says,
" Come forward, then ; for verily thou shalt be men-
tioned [to him]."
When Horus had led in Ani he addressed Osiris,
saying, "I have come unto thee, O Un-nefer, and I
have brought the Osiris Ani unto thee. His heart
hath been found righteous and it hath come forth from
the balance; it hath not sinned against any god or
any goddess. Thoth hath weighed it according to the
decree uttered unto him by the company of the gods ;
and it is very true and right. Grant unto him cakes
and ale ; and let him enter into thy presence ; and may
he be like unto the followers of Horus for ever ! "
After this address Ani, kneeling by the side of tables
of offerings of fruit, flowers, etc., which he has brought
unto Osiris, says, " O Lord of Amentet, I am in thy
presence. There is no sin in me, I have not lied
wittingly, nor have I done aught with a false heart.
Grant that I may be like unto those favoured ones
who are round about thee, and that I may be an
Osiris greatly favoured of the beautiful god and
150 ADDRESS TO GODS OF THE UNDERWORLD.
beloved of the Lord of the world, [I], the royal scribe
of Maat, who loveth him, Ani, triumphant before
Osiris." 1 Thus we come to the end of the scene of the
weighing of the heart.
The man who has passed safely through this ordeal
has now to meet the gods of the underworld, and the
Book of the Dead provides the words which " the heart
which is righteous and sinless " shall say unto them.
One of the fullest and most correct texts of " the speech
of the deceased when he cometh forth true of voice
from the Hall of the Maati goddesses " is found in the
Papyrus of Nu ; in it the deceased says : —
" Homage to you, 0 ye gods who dwell in the Hall of
the Maati goddesses, I, even I, know you, and I know
your names. Let me not fall under your knives of
slaughter, and bring ye not forward my wickedness
unto the god in whose train ye are ; and let not evil
hap come upon me by your means. O declare ye me
true of voice in the presence of Neb-er-tcher, because
I have done that which is right and true in Ta-mera
(i.e., Egypt). I have not cursed God, therefore let not
evil hap come upon me through the King who dwelleth
in his day.
" Homage to you, 0 ye gods, who dwell in the Hall
of the Maati goddesses, who are without evil in your
1 Or "true of voice in respect of Osiris;" i.e., Ani makes his
petition, and Osiris is to hear and answer because he has uttered
the right words in the right manner, and in the right tone of voice.
FINAL CONFESSION. !$!
bodies, and who live upon right and truth, and who
feed yourselves upon right and truth in the presence
of the god Horus, who dwelleth in his divine Disk ;
deliver ye me from the god Baba 1 who feedeth upon
the entrails of the mighty ones upon the day of the
great reckoning. 0 grant ye that I may come to you,
for I have not committed faults, I have not sinned,
I have not done evil, I have not borne false witness ;
therefore let nothing [evil] be done unto me. I live
upon right and truth, and I feed upon right and truth.
I have performed the commandments of men [as well
as] the things whereat are gratified the gods ; I have
made God to be at peace [with me by doing] that
which is his will. I have given bread to the hungry
man, and water to the thirsty man, and apparel to the
naked man, and a boat to the [shipwrecked] mariner.
I have made holy offerings to the gods, and sepulchral
meals to the beatified dead. Be ye then my deliverers,
be ye then my protectors, and make ye not accusation
against me in the presence of [Osiris]. I am clean
of mouth and clean of hands ; therefore let it be said
unto me by those who shall behold me, ' Come in peace,
come in peace.' I have heard the mighty word which
the spiritual bodies spake unto the Cat2 in the house
1 The firstborn son of Osiris.
1 I.e., Ka as the slayer of the serpent of darkness, the head of which
he cuts off with a knife. (See above, p. 63). The nsaal reading is
" which the Ass spake to the Cat ; " the Ass being Osiris and tl.e
Cat Ka.
152 ADDRESS TO OSIRIS.
of Hapt-re. I have testified in the presence of Hra-f-
ha-f, and he hath given [his] decision. I have seen
the things over which the Persea tree spreadeth within
Re-stau. I am he who hath offered up prayers to the
gods and who knoweth their persons. I have come,
and I have advanced to make the declaration of right
and truth, and to set the Balance upon what supporteth
it in the region of Aukert.
" Hail, thou who art exalted upon thy standard (i.e.,
Osiris), thou lord of the ' Atefu ' crown whose name is
proclaimed as ' Lord of the winds,' deliver thou me from
thy divine messengers who cause dire deeds to happen,
and who cause calamities to come into being, and who
are without coverings for their faces, for I have done
that which is right and true for the Lord of right and
truth. I have purified myself and my breast with
libations, and my hinder parts with the things which
make clean, and my inward parts have been [immersed]
in the Pool of Eight and Truth. There is no single
member of mine which lacketh right and truth. I have
been purified in the Pool of the South, and I have
rested in the City of the North, which is in the Field
of the Grasshoppers, wherein the divine sailors of Ea
bathe at the second hour of the night and at the third
hour of the day ; and the hearts of the gods are gratified
after they have passed through it, whether it be by
night, or whether it be by day. And I would that they
should say unto me, ' Come forward/ and ' Who art
THE DECEASED AND THE GODS CONVERSE. 153
them ? ' and ' What is thy name ? ' These are the words
which I would have the gods say unto me. [Then
would I reply] ' My name is He who is provided with
flowers, and Dweller in his olive tree.' Then let them
say unto me straightway, ' Pass on,' and I would pass
on to the city to the north of the Olive tree. ' What
then wilt thou see there ? ' [say they. And I say] ' The
Leg and the Thigh.' 'What wouldst thou say unto
them ? ' [say they.] ' Let me see rejoicings in the land
of the Fenkhu ' [I reply]. ' What will they give thee ?
[say they], 'A fiery flame and a crystal tablet' [I
reply]. ' What wilt thou do therewith ? ' [say they].
' Bury them by the furrow of Maaat as Things for the
night' [I reply]. 'What wilt thou find by tha
furrow of Maaat ? ' [say they]. ' A sceptre of flint called
Giver of Air ' [I reply], ' What wilt thou do with the
fiery flame and the crystal tablet after thou hast buried
them ?' [say they]. 'I will recite words over them in
the furrow. I will extinguish the fire, and I will break
the tablet, and I will make a pool of water ' [I reply].
Then let the gods say unto me, 'Come and enter in
through the door of this Hall of the Maati goddesses,
for thou knowest us.' "
After these remarkable prayers follows a dialogue
between each part of the Hall of Maati and the deceased,
which reads as follows : —
Door bolts. " We will not let thee enter in through us
unless thou tellest our names."
154 THE KNOWING OF NAMES.
Deceased. " ' Tongue of the place of Eight and Truth '
is your name."
Eight post. " I will not let thee enter in by me unless
thou tellest my name."
Deceased. " ' Scale of the lifter up of right and truth '
is thy name."
Left post. " I will not let thee enter in by me unless
thou tellest my name."
Deceased. " ' Scale of wine ' is thy name."
Threshold. " I will not let thee pass over me unless
thou tellest my name."
Deceased. " ' Ox of the god Seb ' is thy name."
Hasp. " I will not open unto thee unless thou tellest
my name."
Deceased. " ' Leg-bone of his mother ' is thy name."
Socket-hole. " I will not open unto thee unless thou
tellest my name."
Deceased. " ' Living Eye of Sebek, the lord of Bakhau,'
is thy name."
Porter. " I will not open unto thee unless thou tellest
my name."
Deceased. " ' Elbow of the god Shu when he placeth
himself to protect Osiris ' is thy name."
Side posts. " We will not let thee pass in by us, unless
thou tellest our names."
Deceased. " ' Children of the uraei-goddesses ' is your
name."
" Thou knowest us ; pass on, therefore, by us " [say
these].
THE KNOWING OF NAMES. 155
Floor. "I will not let thee tread upon me, because
I am silent and I am holy, and because I do not know
the names of thy feet wherewith thou wouldst walk
upon me ; therefore tell them to ma"
Deceased. " ' Traveller of the god Khas ' is the name
of my right foot, and ' Staff of the goddess Hathor ' is
the name of my left foot."
" Thou knowest me ; pass on, therefore, over me " [it
saithj.
Doorkeeper. " I will not take in thy name unless thou
tellest my name."
Deceased. "'Discerner of hearts and searcher of the
reins ' is thy name."
Doorkeeper. "Who is the god that dwelleth in his
hour ? Utter his name."
Deceased. " ' Maau-Taui ' is his name."
Doorkeeper. " And who is Maau-Taui ? "
Deceased. " He is Thoth."
Thoth. " Come ! But why hast thou come ? "
Deceased. " I have come and I press forward that my
name may be mentioned."
Thoth. " In what state art thou ? "
Deceased. " I am purified from evil things, and I am
protected from the baleful deeds of those who live in
their days ; and I am not of them."
Thoth. "Now will I make mention of thy name
[to the god]. And who is he whose roof is of
fire, whose walls are living uraei, and the floor of
156 THE REWARD OF THE DECEASED.
whose house is a stream of water? Who is he, I
say ? "
Deceased. " It is Osiris."
Thoth. " Come forward, then ; verily, mention of thy
name shall be made unto him. Thy cakes [shall come]
from the Eye of Ea ; and thine ale [shall come] from
the Eye of Ea ; and thy sepulchral meals upon earth
[shall come] from the Eye of Ea."
With these words Chapter CXXV comes to an end.
We have seen how the deceased has passed through the
ordeal of the judgment, and how the scribes provided
him with hymns and prayers, and with the words of a
confession with a view of facilitating his passage through
the dread Hall of the Maati goddesses. Unfortunately
the answer which the god Osiris may be supposed to
have made to his son Horus in respect of the deceased
is not recorded, but there is no doubt that the Egyptian
assumed that it would be favourable to him, and that
permission would be accorded him to enter into each
and every portion of the underworld, and to partake of
all the delights which the beatified enjoyed under the
rule of Ea and Osiris.
( 157 )
CHAPTEE V.
THE RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY.
IN perusing the literature of the ancient Egyptians one
of the first things which forces itself upon the mind of
the reader is the frequency of allusions to the future
life or to things which appertain thereto. The writers
of the various religious and other works, belonging to
all periods of Egyptian history, which have come down
to us, tacitly assume throughout that those who once
have lived in this world have "renewed" their life in that
which is beyg>nd the grave, and that they still live and
will live until time shall be no more. The Egyptian
belief in the existence of Almighty God is old, so old
that we must seek for its beginnings in pre-dynastic
times; but the belief in a future life is very much
older, and its beginnings must be as old, at^ least, as the_
oldest human remains which have been found in Egypt.
To attempt to measure by years the remoteness of
the period when these were committed to the earth is
futile, for no date that could be given them is likely
to be even approximately correct, and they may as
158 , PRE- DYNASTIC BURIALS.
well date from B.C. 12,000 as from B.C. 800JL Of one
fact, however, we may be quite certain; that is to say,
that the oldest human remains that have been found
in Egypt bear upon them traces of the 'use of bitumen,
which proves that the Egyptians at the1 very beginning
of their stay in the valley of the IJile made some
attempt to preserve, their dead by means of mummi-
fication.1 If they were, as many think, invaders who
had made their way across Arabia and the Eecl Sea and
the eastern desert of the Nile, they may have brought
the idea and habit of preserving their dead with them,
or they may have adopted, in a modified form, some
practice in use among the aboriginal inhabitants whom
they found on their arrival in Egypt ; in either case
the fact that they attempted to preserve their dead by
the use of substances which would arrest decay is
certain, and in a degree their attempt has succeeded.
The existence of the non-historic inhabitants of Egypt
has been revealed to us in recent years by means 'of a
number of successful excavations, which, have been
made in Upper Egypt on both sides of the Nile by
several European and native explorers, and one of the
most- striking results has been the discovery of three
different kinds of burials, which undoubtedly belong
to three different periods, as we may see by examining^
the various objects which have been found in the early
graves at Nakadah and other non-historic sites of the
1 See J. de Morgan, Ethnographic Prfhistorique, Paris, 1897, p. 139.
Ibe Elysian Fields of the Egyptians according to the Papyrus of Nebseni (XVIIIth dyna ty).
PRE-DYNASTIC BURIALS. 159
same age and type. In the oldest tombs we find the
skeleton laid upon its left side, with the limbs bent :
tb« knees are on, a level with the breast, and the hands
are placed in front of the face. Generally the head
faces towards the south, but no invariable rule seems
to have been observed as to its " orientation." Before
the body was laid in the ground it was either wrapped
in gazelle skin or laid in loose grass; the substance
used for the purposes of wrapping probably depended
upon .the social condition of the deceased. . In burials
of this class there are no ' traces of mummification, or
of burning, or of stripping the flesh from, the bones.
In the next oldest graves the bodies are found to have
been wholly or partly stripped of their flesh; in the
former case all the bones are found cast indiscrimi-
nately in the grave, in the latter the bones of the hands
and the feet were laid together, while the rest of the
skeleton is scattered about in wild confusion. Graves
of this period are found to be oriented either north or
south, and the bodies in them usually have the head
separated from the body ; sometimes it is clear that the
bodies have been "jointed" so that they might occupy
less space. Occasionally the bodies are found lying
upon their backs with their legs and arms folded over
them; in this case they are covered over with clay
casings. In certain graves it is clear that the body
has been burat. Now in all classes of tombs belong-
ing to the prehistoric period in Egypt we find offerings
160 ANTIQUITY OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.
in vases and vessels of various kinds, a fact which
proves beyond all doubt that the men who made these
graves believed that their dead friends and relatives
would live again in some place, of the whereabouts
of which they probably had very vague ideas, in a life
which was, presumably, not unlike that which they
had lived upon earth. The flint tools, knives, scrapers
and the like indicate that they thought they would
hunt and slay their quarry when brought down, and
fight their foes ; and the schist objects found in the
graves, which M. de Morgan identifies as amulets,
shows that even in those early days man believed that
he could protect himself against the powers of super-
natural and invisible enemies by talismans. The man
who would hunt and fight in the next world must live
again; and if he would live again it must be either
in his old body or in a new one ; if in the old body, it
must be revivified. But once having imagined a new
life, probably in a new body, death a second time was
not, the prehistoric Egyptian hoped, within the bounds
of possibility. Here, then, we have the origin of the
grand ideas of the EESUERECTION and IMMOKTALITY.
There is every reason for believing that the pre-
historic Egyptian expected to eat, and to drink, and to
lead a life of pleasure in the region where he imagined
his heaven to be, and there is little doubt that he
thought the body in which he would live there would
be not unlike the body which he had while he was
THE PRIESTS OF HELIOPOLIS. l6l
upon earth. At this stage his ideas of the super-
natural and of the future life would be like those of
any man of the same race who stood on the same level
in the scale of civilization, but in every way he was
a great contrast to the Egyptian who lived, let us say,
in the time of Mena, the first historical king of Egypt,
the date of whom for convenience' sake is placed at
B.C. 4400. The interval between the time when the
prehistoric Egyptians made the graves described above
and the reign of Mena must have been very consider-
able, and we may justly believe it to represent some
thousands of years; but whatever its length, we find
that the time was not sufficient to wipe out the early
views which had been handed on from generation to
generation, or even to modify some of the beliefs which
we now know to have existed in an almost unchanged
state at the latest period of Egyptian history. In the
texts which were "edited by the priests of Heliopolis
we find references to a state or condition of things,
as far as social matters are concerned, which could
only exist in a society of men who were half savages,
And we see from later works, when extracts are made
from the earlier texts which contain such references,
that the passages in which objectionable allusions
occur are either omitted altogether or modified. We
know of a certainty that the educated men of the
College of Heliopolis cannot have indulged in the
excesses which the deceased kings for whom they
H
l62 THE BURNING OF THE DEAD.
prepared the funeral texts are assumed to enjoy, and
the mention of the nameless abomination which the
savage Egyptian inflicted upon his vanquished foe can
only have been allowed to remain in them because of
their own reverence for the written word.
In passing it must be mentioned that the religious
ideas of the men who were buried without mutilation
of limbs, or stripping of flesh from the body, or burning,
must have been different from those of the men who
practised such things on the dead. The former are
buried in the ante-natal position of a child, and we
may perhaps be justified in seeing in this custom
the symbol of a hope that as the child is born from
this position into the world, so might the deceased
be born into the life in the world beyond the grave ;
and the presence of amulets, the object of which •vtfas
to protect the body, seems to indicate that they
expected the actual body to rise again. The latter,
by the mutilation of the bodies and the burning of
the dead, seem to show that they had no hope of living
again in their natural bodies, and how far they had
approached to the conception of the resurrection of
a spiritual body we shall probably never know. When
we arrive at the IVth dynasty we find that, so far
from any practice of mutilation or burning of the body
being common, every text assumes that the body is
to be buried whole ; this fact indicates a reversal of
the custom of mutilation or burning, which must have
THE BODY AND THE KA. 163
been in use, however, for a considerable time. It is
to this reversal that we probably owe such passages
as, " 0 flesh of Pepi, rot not, decay not, stink not ; "
" Pepi goeth forth with his flesh ; " " thy bones shall
not be destroyed, and thy flesh shall not perish," * etc. ;
and they denote a return to the views and ways of
the earliest people known to us in Egypt.
In the interval which elapsed between the period
of the prehistoric burials and the IVth dynasty, the
Egyptian formulated certain theories about the com-
ponent parts of his own body, and we must consider
these briefly before we can describe the form in which
the dead were believed to rise. The physical body <
of a man was called KHAT, a word which indicates
c: r- — — — — ^-.
something in which decay is inherent; it was thi
which was buried irKthe tomb after mummification,
and its preservation from destruction of every kind
was the object of all amulets, magical ceremonies,
prayers, and formulae, fromHhe earliest to the latest
times. The^god OstTis~ev^n_^sses6ed stieh- a— body,
and— ite-^i^afietts members^ weje-^prfeaorvcd 03 relics-4B
sev^Ffd-shuaek-4n_J£gy4jL_ Attached to the body in
some remarkable way was -the -,KA, or " double," of a
man; it may be defined as an abstract individuality
or ' personality which was endowed with all his cha-
racteristic attributes, and it possessed an absolutely
independent existence. It was free to move from
1 See Becueil de Travaux, torn. v. pp. 55, 185 (lines 163, 317, 353).
164 THE KA AND THE SOUL.
to place upon earth at will, and it could enter
heaven and hold converse with the gods. The offerings
made in the tombs at all periods were intended for
the nourishment of the KA, and it was supposed to
be able to eat and drink and to enjoy the odour of
incense. J Ia-the . earliest time* ^-certain pertiea-ef— the
t0m1r%as-i3et -apart-Jijr, the- -use of the KA,-aad—the
religion organization -of- the period ordered -that a
class of priests should -perform ceremonies aad-recite
pFftyers---air*sta^d ~season3~~fbr— tha -benefit D£ -"the KA
rn-^the KA chapel ; ^ these men were known as " KA
_p_riests." In the period^ when the pyramids were
built it was firmly believed' that the deceased, in some
form, was able to be purified,' a,nd to sit down and to
eat bread with it " unceasingly and for ever ; " and
the KA who was not supplied with a sufficiency of food
in the shape of offerings of bread, cakes, flowers, fruit,
wine-; ale, -««dr^h^"lilce7~^waT~m^erious danger cf
starvation,
The soul was called BA, and the ideas which the
Egyptians held concerning it are somewhat difficult
to reconcile ; the meaning of the word seems to be
something like " sublime," " noble," " mighty." The
BA dwelt in the KA, and seems to have had the power
of becoming corporeal or incorporeal at will; it had
both substance and form, and is frequently depicted
on the papyri and monuments as a human-headed
hawk; in nature and substance it is stated to be
THE HEART, SPIRIT AND SHADOW. 165
ethereal. It had the power to leave the tomb, and
to pass up into heaven where it was believed to enjoy
an eternal existence in a state of glory; it could,
however, and did, revisit the body in the tomb, arid
from certain texts it seems that it could re-animate
it and hold converse with it. Like the heart AB it
was, in some respects, the seat of life in man. The
souls of the blessed dead dwelt in heaven with the
gods, and. they partook of all the celestial enjoyments
for ever.
The spiritual intelligence, or spirit, of a man was
called KHU, and it seems to have taken form as a
shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body ; the
KHUS formed a class of celestial .beings who lived with
the gods, but their functions are not clear. The KHU,
like the KA, could be imprisoned in the tomb, and
to obviate this catastrophe special formulae were com-
posed and duly recited. Besides the KHU another very
important part of a man's entity went into heaven,
namely, his SEKHEM. The word literally means " to
have the mastery over something," and, as used in the
early texts, that which enables one to have the mastery
over something, i.e., " power." The SEKHEM of a man
was, apparently, his vital force or strength personified,
and the Egyptians believed that it could and did,
under certain conditions, follow him that possessed
it upon earth into heaven. Another part of a man
was the KHAIBIT or "shadow," which is frequently
1 66 THE IMPORTANCE OF A NAME.
mentioned in^connexion with the soul and, in late
times, was always thought' to be near it. Finally
we may mention the .EEN, or " name " of a man, as
one of his most important constituent parts. The
Egyptians, in common with all Eastern nations, attached
the greatest importance to the preservation of the
name, and any person who effected the blotting out
of a man's name was thought to have destroyed him
also. Like the KA it was a portion of a man's most
special identity, and it is easy to see why so much
importance grew to be attached to it; a nameless
being could not be introduced to the gods, and as
no created thing exists without a name the man who
had no name was in a worse position before the divine
powers than the feeblest inanimate object. To per-
petuate the name of a father was a good son's duty,
and to keep the tombs of the dead in good repair
so that all might read the names of those who were
buried in them was a most meritorious act. On the
other hand, if the deceased knew the names of divine
beings, whether friends or foes, and could pronounce
them, he at once obtained power over them, and was
able to make them perform his will.
We have seen that the entity of a man consisted of
body, double, soul, heart, spiritual intelligence or spirit,
power, shadow, and name. These eight parts may be
reduced to three by leaving out of consideration the
double, heart, power, shadow and name as representing
THE BODY REMAINS ON EARTH. l6/
beliefs which were produced by the Egyptian as he was
slowly ascending the scale of civilization, and as being
the peculiar product of his race ; we may then say that
a man consisted of body, soul, and spirit. But did all
three rise, and live in the world beyond the grave ?
The Egyptian texts answer this question definitely ;
the soul and the spirit of the righteous passed from
the body and lived with the beatified and the gods in
heaven ; but the physical body did not rise again, and
it was believed never to leave the tomb. There were
ignorant people in Egypt who, no doubt, believed in
the resurrection of the corruptible body, and who
imagined that the new life would be, after all, some-
thing very much like a continuation of that which they
were living in this world; but the Egyptian who
followed the teaching of his sacred writings knew that
such beliefs were not consistent with the views of
their priests and of educated people in general. Already
in the Vth dynasty, about B.C. 3400, it is stated
definitely : —
" Tl^e soul to heaven, the body to earth ; " *
and three thousand years later the Egyptian writer
declared the same thing, but in different words, when
he wrote : — 2
" Heaven hath thy soul, and earth thy body."
The Egyptian hoped, among other things, that he
1 Recueil de Travaux, torn. iv. p. 71 (1. 582).
* Horrack, Lamentations d'ltis, Paris, 18G6, p. 6.
1 68 THE RENEWAL OF THE BODY.
would sail over the sky in the boat of Ka, but he knew
well that he could not do this in his mortal body ; he
believed firmly that he would live for millions of years,
but with the experience of the human race before him
he knew that this also was impossible if the body in
which he was to live was that in which he had lived
upon earth. At first he thought that his physical body
might, after the manner of the sun, be " renewed daily,"
and that his new life would resemble that of that
emblem of the Sun-god Ea with which he sought to
identify himself. Later, however, his experience taught
him that the best mummified body was sometimes
destroyed, either by damp, or dry rot, or decay in one
form or another, and, that mummification alone was
not sufficient to ensure resurrection or the attainment
of the future life ; and, in brief, he discovered that by
no human means could that which is corruptible by
nature be made to become incorruptible, for the very
animals in which the gods themselves were incarnate
became sick and died in their appointed season. It is
hard to say why the Egyptians continued to mummify
the dead since there is good reason for knowing that
they did not expect the physical body to rise again. It
may be that they thought its preservation necessary for
the welfare of the KA, or "double," and for the
development of a new body from it ; also the continued
custom may have been the result of intense conserva-
tism. But \vhatever the reason, the Egyptian never
TIIOTH AND ISIS. 169
ceased to take every possible precaution to preserve the
dead body intact, and he sought for help in his trouble
from another source.
It will be remembered that when Isis found the dead
body of her husband Osiris, she at once set to work to
protect it. She drove away the foes, and made the ill-
luck which had come upon it to be of no effect. In
order to bring about this result " she made strong her
speech with all the strength of her mouth, she was
perfect of tongue, and she halted not in her speech,"
and she pronounced a series of words or formulae with
which Thoth had provided her ; thus she succeeded in
" stirring up the inactivity of the Still-heart " and in
accomplishing her desire in respect of him. Her cries,
prompted by love and grief, would have had no effect
on the dead body unless they had been accompanied by
the words of Thoth, which she uttered with boldness
(khu\ and understanding (aqer), and without fault in
pronunciation (an-uk). The Egyptian of old kept this
fact in his mind, and determined to procure the resur-
rection of his friends and relatives by the same means
as Isis employed, i.e., the formulas of Thoth ; with this
object in view each dead person was provided with a
series of texts, either written upon his coffin, or upon
papyri and amulets, which would have the same effect
as the words of Thoth which were spoken by Isis. But
the relatives of the deceased had also a duty to perform
in this matter, and that was to provide for the recital
THE SPIRITUAL BODY.
of certain prayers, and for the performance of a number
of symbolical ceremonies over the dead body before it
was laid to rest finally in the tomb. A sacrifice had to
be offered up, and the deceased and his friends and
relatives assisted at it, and each ceremony was accom-
panied by its proper prayers ; when all had been done
and said according to the ordinances of the priests, the
body was taken to its place in the mummy chamber.
But the words of Thoth and the prayers of the priests
caused the body to become changed into a " SAHU," or
incorruptible, spiritual body, which passed straightway
out of the tomb and made its way to heaven where it
dwelt with the gods. When in the Book of the Dead
the deceased says, "I exist, I exist; I live, I live; I
germinate, I germinate," l and again, " I germinate like
the plants," a the deceased does not mean that his
physical body is putting forth the beginnings of another
body like the old one, but a spiritual body which " hath
neither defect nor, like Ba, shall suffer diminution for
ever." Into the SAHU passed the soul which had lived
in the body of a man upon earth, and it seems as if the
new, incorruptible body formed the dwelling-place of
the soul in heaven just as the physical body had been
its earthly abode. The reasons why the Egyptians
continued to mummify their dead is thus apparent;
they did not do so believing that their physical bodies
would rise again, but because they wished the spiritual
1 See Chap. cliv. * See Chap. Ixxxviii. 3.
THE SPIRITUAL BODY. I? I
body to " sprout " or "germinate" fiom them, and if
possible — at least it seems so — to be in the form of
the physical body. In this way did the dead rise
according to the Egyptians, and in this body did they
come.
From what has been said above, it will be seen that
there is no reason for doubting the antiquity of the
Egyptian belief in the resurrection of the dead and in
immortality, and the general evidence derived both
from archaeological and religious considerations sup-
ports this view. As old, however, as this belief in
general is the specific belief in a spiritual body (sin or
SAHU); for we find it in texts of the Vth dynasty
incorporated with ideas which belong to the pre-historic
Egyptian in his savage or semi- savage state. One
remarkable extract will prove this point. In the
funeral chapters which are inscribed on the walls of the
chambers and passages inside the pyramid of "King
Unas, who flourished at the end of the Vth dynasty,
about B.C. 3300, is a passage in which the deceased
king terrifies all the powers of heaven and earth because
he " riseth as a soul (BA) in the form of the god who
liveth upon his fathers and who maketh food of his
mothers. Unas is the lord of wisdom and his mother
knoweth not his name. He hath become mighty like
unto the god Temu, the father who gave him birth, and
after Temu gave him birth he became stronger than his
father." The king is likened unto a Bull, and he
1/2 THE DECEASED EATS HIS GODS.
feedeth upon every god, whatever may be the form in
which he appeareth ; " he hath weighed words with the
god whose name is hidden," and he devoureth men and
liveth upon gods. The dead king is then said to set
out to hunt the gods in their meadows, and when he
has caught them with nooses, he causes them to be
slain. They are next cooked in blazing cauldrons, the
greatest for his morning meal, the lesser for his evening
o o * O
meal, and the least for his midnight meal ; the old gods
and goddesses serve as fuel for his cooking pots. In
this way, having swallowed the magical powers and
spirits of the gods, he becomes the Great Power of
Powers among the gods, and the greatest of the gods
who appear in visible forms. " Whatever he hath
found upon his path he hath consumed, and his strength
is greater than that of any spiritual body (SAHU) in the
horizon; he is the firstborn of all the firstborn, and
... he hath carried off the hearts of the gods. . . . He
hath eaten the wisdom of every god, and his period of
existence is everlasting, and his life shall be unto all
eternity, ... for the souls and the spirits of the gods
are in him."
We have, it is clear, in this passage an allusion to
the custom of savages of all nations and periods, of
eating portions of the bodies of valiant foes whom they
have vanquished in war in order to absorb their virtues
and strength; the same habit has also obtained in some
places in respect of animals. In the case of the gods
BELIEF IN ETERNAL LIFE. 173
the deceased is made to covet their one peculiar
attribute, that is to say, everlasting life ; and when he
has absorbed their souls and spirits he is declared to
have obtained all that makes him superior to every
other spiritual body in strength and in length of life.
The " magical powers " (heka), which the king is also
said to have "eaten," are the words and formulae, the
utterance of which by him, in whatever circumstances he
may be placed, will cause every being, friendly or un-
friendly, to do his wilL But apart from any question of
the slaughter of the gods the Egyptians declared of this
same king, " Behold, thou hast not gone as one dead,
but as one living, to sit upon the throne of Osiris ; " l
and in a papyrus written nearly two thousand years
later the deceased himself says, " My soul is God, my
soul is eternity," 2 a clear proof that the ideas of the
existence of God and of eternity were identical. Yet
one other example is worth quoting, if only to show the
care that the writers of religious texts took to impress
the immortality of the soul upon their readers. Accord-
ing to Chapter CLXXV. of the Book of the Dead the
deceased finds himself in a place where there is neither
water nor air, and where " it is depth unfathomable, it is
black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly
therein. In it a man may not live in quietness of
heart, nor may the longings of love be satisfied therein.
1 Becueil de Tracaux, torn. v. p. 167 (1. 65).
» Papyrus of Ani, Plate 28, 1. 15 (Chapter Ixxxiv.).
1/4 BELIEF IN ETERNAL LIFE.
But," says the deceased to the god Thoth, " let the state
of the spirits be given unto me instead of water, and
air, and the satisfying of the longings of love, and let
quietness of heart be given unto me instead of cakes
and ale. The god Temu hath decreed that I shall see
thy face, and that I shall not suffer from the things
which pained thee ; may every god transmit unto thee
[0 Osiris] his throne for millions of years ! Thy throne
hath descended unto thy son Horus, and the god Temu
hath decreed that his course shall be among the holy
princes. Verily he shall rule over thy throne, and he
shall be heir of the throne of the Dweller in the Lake
of the Two Fires. Verily it hath been decreed that in
me he shall see Ms likeness,1 and that my face shall look
upon the face of the lord Tern." After reciting these
words, the deceased asks Thoth, " How long have I to
live ? " and the god replies, " It is decreed that thou
shalt live for millions of millions of years, a life of
millions of years." To give emphasis and additional
effect to his words the god is made to speak tautologi-
cally so that the most unlettered man may not miss
their meaning. A little later in the Chapter the
deceased says, " 0 my father Osiris, thou hast done for
me that which thy father Ka did for thee. So shall
I abide on the earth lastingly, I shall keep possession
of my seat ; my heir shall be strong ; my tomb and my
friends who are upon earth shall nourish ; my enemies
1 I.e., I shall be like Horus, the son of Osiris.
CELESTIAL FOOD. I?5
shall be given over to destruction and to the shackles of
the goddess Serq. I am thy son, and Ea is my father ;
for me likewise thou shalt make life, and strength, and
health ! " It is interesting to note that the deceased
first identifies Osiris with Ea, and then he identifies
himself with Osiris ; thus he identifies himself with Ea.
With the subjects of resurrection and immortality
must be mentioned the frequent references in the
religious texts of all periods to the meat and drink
on which lived the beings who were believed to exist
in the world beyond the grave. In prehistoric days
it was natural enough for the dead man's friends to
place food in his grave, because they thought that he
would require it on his journey to the next world ; this
custom also presupposed that the deceased would have
a body like unto that which he had left behind him
in this world, and that it would need food and drink.
In the Vth dynasty the Egyptians believed that the
blessed dead lived upon celestial food, and that they
suffered neither hunger nor thirst ; they ate what the
gods ate, ttfey drank what they drank, they were what
they were, and became in such matters as these the
counterparts of the gods. In another passage we
read that they are apparelled in white linen, that
they wear white sandals, and that they go to the great
lake which is in the midst of the Field of Peace
•whereon the great gods sit, and that the gods give
them to eat of the food (or tree) of life of which they
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
themselves eat that they also may live. It is certain,
however, that other views than these were held con-
cerning the food of the dead, for already in the Vth
dynasty the existence of a region called Sekhet-Aaru,
or Sekhet-Aanru had been formulated, and to this
place the soul, or at least some part, of the pious
Egyptian hoped to make its way. Where Sekhet-
Aaru was situated we have no means of saying, and
the texts afford us no clue as to its whereabouts ; some
scholars think that it lay away to the east of Egypt,
but it is far more likely to represent some district of
the Delta either in its northern or north-eastern portion.
Fortunately we have a picture of it in the Papyrus
of Nebseni,1 the oldest probably on papyrus, and from
this we may see that Sekhet-Aaru, i.e., the "Field of
Reeds," typified some very fertile region where farming
operations could be carried on with ease and success.
Canals and watercourses abound, and in one section,
we are told, the spirits of the blessed dwelt; the
picture probably represents a traditional " Paradise "
or " Elysian Fields," and the general characteristics
of this happy land are those of a large, well-kept, and
well-stocked homestead, situated at no great distance
from the Nile or one of its main branches. In the
Papyrus of Nebseni the divisions of the Sekhet-Aaru
contain the following : —
1 Brit. Mus., No. 9900; tliis document belongs to tlio XVIIItb
dynasty.
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 1/9
1. Nebseni, the scribe and artist of the Temple of
Ptah, with his arms hanging by his sides, entering the
Elysian Fields.
2. Nebseni making an offering of incense to the
" great company of the gods."
3. Nebseni seated in a boat paddling; above the
boat are three symbols for " city."
4. Nebseni addressing a bearded mummied
figure.
5. Three Pools or Lakes called Urti, Hetep, and
Qetqet.
6. Nebseni reaping in Sekhet-hetepet.
7. Nebseni grasping the Bennu bird, which is
perched upon a stand ; in front are three KAU and
three KHU.
8. Nebseni seated and smelling a flower ; the text
reads : " Thousands of all good and pure things to the
KA of Nebseni."
9. A table of offerings.
10. Four Pools or Lakes called Nebt-taui, Uakha,
Kha (?), and Hetep.
11. Nebseni ploughing with oxen by the side of a
stream which is one thousand [measures] in length,
and the width of which cannot be said ; in it there are
neither fish nor worms.
12. Nebseni ploughing with oxen on an island " the
length of which is the length of heaven."
13. A division shaped like a bowl, in which is
180 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
inscribed : " The birthplace (?) of the god of the city
Qenqentet Nebt."
14. An island whereon are four gods and a flight of
steps ; the legend reads : " The great company of the
gods who are in Sekhet-hetep."
15. The boat Tchetetfet, with eight oars, four at the
bows, and four at the stern, floating at the end of a
canal ; in it is a flight of steps. The place where it lies
is called the " Domain of Neth."
16. Two Pools, the names of which are illegible.
The scene as given in the Papyrus of Ani J gives some
interesting variants and may be described thus : —
1. Ani making an offering before a hare-headed god,
a snake-headed god, and a bull-headed god ; behind
him stand his wife Thuthu and Thoth holding his reed
and palette. Ani paddling a boat. Ani addressing a
hawk, before which are a table of offerings, a statue,
three ovals, and the legend, "Being at peace in the
Field, and having air for the nostrils."
2. Ani reaping corn, Ani driving the oxen which
tread out the corn ; Ani addressing (or adoring) a
Bennu bird perched on a stand ; Ani seated holding
the Jcherp sceptre ; a heap of red and a heap of white
corn ; three KAU and three KHU, which are perhaps
to be read, " the food of the spirits ; " and three
Pools.
3. Ani ploughing a field near a stream which contains
1 Brit. Mus., No. 10,470, Plate 35.
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 183
neither fish, nor serpents, nor worms of any kind what-
soever.
4. The birthplace of the " god of the city ; " an island
on which is a flight of steps ; a region called the " place
of the spirits" who are seven cubits high, where the
wheat is three cubits high, and where the SAIIU, or
spiritual bodies, reap it ; the region Ashet, the god
who dwelleth therein being Un-nefer (i.e., a form of
Osiris) ; a boat with eight oars lying at the end of a
canal ; and a boat floating on a canal. The name of
the first boat is Behutu-tcheser, and that of the second
Tchefau.
So far we have seen that in heaven and in the world
beyond the grave the deceased has found only divine
beings, and the doubles, and the souls, and the spirits,
and the spiritual bodies of the blessed; but no refer-
ence has been made to the possibility of the dead
recognizing each other, or being able to continue the
friendships or relationships which they had when
upon earth. In the Sekhet-Aaru the case is, however,
different, for there we have reason to believe relation-
ships were recognized and rejoiced in. Thus in
Chapter LII. of the Book of the Dead, which was
composed with the idea of the deceased, from lack of
proper food in the underworld, being obliged to eat
filth,1 and with the object of preventing such an awful
1 This idea is a survival of prehistoric times, when it was thought
that if the proper sepulchral meals were not deposited at regular
184 THE FOOD OF THE DECEASED.
thing, the deceased says : " That which is an abomina-
tion unto me, that which is an abomination unto me,
let me not eat. That which is an abomination unto
me, that which is an abomination unto me, is filth ;
let me not be obliged to eat thereof in the place of the
sepulchral cakes which are offered unto the KAU
(i.e., " doubles "). Let it not touch my body, let me
not be obliged to hold it in my hands ; and let me not
be compelled to tread thereon in my sandals."
Some being or beings, probably the gods, then ask
him, " What, now, wilt thou live upon in the presence
of the gods ? ". And he replies, " Let food come to
me from the place of food, and let me live upon the
seven loaves of bread which shall be brought as food
before Horus, and upon the bread which is brought
before Thoth. And when the gods shall say unto me,
' What manner of food wouldst thou have given unto
thee ? ' I will reply, ' Let me eat my food under the
sycamore tree of my lady, the goddess Hathor, and
let my times be among the divine beings who have
alighted thereon. Let me have the power to order
my own fields in Tattu (Busiris), and my own growing
crops in Annu. Let me live upon bread made of
white grain, and let my beer be made from red grain,
and may the persons of my father and mother be
intervale where the KA, or " double," of the deceased could get at
them it would be obliged to wander about and pick up whatever it
might find to eat upon its road.
LOCATION OF THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 185
given unto me as guardians of my door, and for the
ordering of my homestead. Let me be sound and
strong, and let me have much room wherein to move,
and let me be able to sit wheresoever I please."
This Chapter is most important as showing that the
deceased wished to have his homestead and its fields
situated in Tattu, that is to say, near the capital of
the Busirite or IXth nome of Lower Egypt, a district
not far from the city of Semennud (i.e., Sebennytus)
and lying a little to the south of the thirty- first parallel
of latitude. It was here that the reconstitution of the
dismembered body of Osiris took place, and it was
here that the solemn ceremony of setting up the
backbone of Osiris was performed each year. The
original Sekhet-Aaru was evidently placed here, and
we are therefore right in assuming that the fertile
fields of this part of the Delta formed the prototype
of the Elysian Fields of the Egyptian. At the same
time he also wished to reap crops on the fields round
about Heliopolis, the seat of the greatest and most
ancient shrine of the San-god. The white grain of
which he would have his bread made is the ordinary
dhura, and the red grain is the red species of the same
plant, which is not so common as the white. As
keepers of the door of his estate the deceased asks for
the " forms (or persons) of his father and his mother, '
and thus we see a desire on the part of the Egyptian
to continue the family life which he began upon earth ;
1 86 THE DEAD RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER.
it goes almost without saying that he would not ask
this thing if he thought there would be no prospect
of knowing his parents in the next world. An interest-
ing proof of this is afforded by the picture of the
Sekhet-Aaru, or Elysian Fields, which is given in the
Papyrus of Anhai,1 a priestess of Amen who lived
probably about B.C. 1000. Here we see the deceased
entering into the topmost section of the district and
addressing two divine • persons ; above one of these
are written the words " her mother," followed by the
name Neferitu. The form which comes next is pro-
bably that of her father, and thus we are sure that
the Egyptians believed they would meet their rela-
tives in the next world and know and be known
by them.
Accompanying the picture of the Elysian Fields is
a long text which forms Chapter CX. of the Book
of the Dead. As it supplies a great deal of information
concerning the views held in early times about that
region, and throws so much light upon the semi-
material life which the pious Egyptians, at one period
of their history, hoped to lead, a rendering of it is
here given. It is entitled, " The Chapters of Sekhet-
Hetepet, and the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day ;
of going into and of coming forth from the underworld ;
of coming to Sekhet-Aaru ; of being in Sekhet-Hetepet,
the mighty land, the lady of winds ; of having power
i Brit. Mus., No. 10,472.
Anhai bowing before her father and mother.
The Elysian Fields. From the Papyrus of Anhai (XXlInd dynasty).
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 189
there; of becoming a spirit (KHU) there; of reaping
there ; of eating there ; of drinking there ; of making
love there; and of doing everything even as a man
doeth upon the earth." The deceased says : —
".Set hath seized Horns, who looked with the two
eyes1 upon the building (?) round Sekhet-hetep, but
I have released Horus [and taken him from] Set, and
Set hath opened the path of the two eyes [which are]
in heaven. Set hath cast (?) his moisture to the winds
upon the soul that hath his day, and that dwelleth
in the city of Mert, and he hath delivered the interior
of the body of Horus from the gods of Akert.
"Behold me now, for I make this mighty boat to
travel over the Lake of Hetep, and I brought it away
with might from the palace of Shu ; the domain of his
stars groweth young and reneweth the strength which
it had of old. I have brought the boat into the lakes
thereof, so that I may come forth into the cities thereof,
and I have sailed into their divine city Hetep. And
behold, it is because I, even I, am at peace with his
seasons, and with his direction, and with his territory,
and with the company of the gods who are his first-
born. He maketh Horus and Set to be at peace with
those who watch over the living ones whom he hath
created in fair form, and he briageth peace ; he maketh
Horus and Set to be at peace with those who watch
over them. He cutteth off the hair from Horus and
1 Le.t the Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horns.
1 90 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
Set, he driveth away storm from the helpless, and
he keepeth away harm from the spirits (KHU). Let
me have dominion within that field, for I know it,
and I have sailed among its lakes so that I might
come into its cities. My mouth is firm,1 and I am
equipped to resist the spirits (KHU), therefore they
shall not have dominion over me. Let me be rewarded
with thy fields, O thou god Hetep ; but that which
is thy wish do, O thou lord of the winds. May I
become a spirit therein, may I eat therein, may I
drink therein, may I plough therein, may I reap
therein, may I fight therein, may I make love therein,
may my words be mighty therein; may I never be
in a state of servitude therein ; but may I be in
authority therein. Thou hast made strong the mouth
(or door) and the throat (?) of Hetep ; Qetet-bu is his
name. He is stablished upon the pillars2 of Shu,
and is linked unto the pleasant things of Ea. He is
the divider of years, he is hidden of mouth, his mouth
is silent, that which he uttereth is secret, he fulfilleth
eternity and hath possession of everlasting existence
as Hetep, the lord Hetep.
" The god Horus maketh himself to be strong like
unto the Hawk which is one thousand cubits in
length, and two thousand [cubits in width] in life ;
1 I.e., I know how to utter the words of power which I possess with
vigour.
2 I.e., the four pillars, one placed at each cardinal point, which
support the sky.
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 191
he hath equipments with him, and he journeyeth on
and cometh where his heart's throne wisheth to be in
the Pools [of Hetep] and in the cities thereof. He was
begotten in the birth-chamber of the god of the city,
offerings of the god of the city are made unto him,
he performeth that which it is meet to do therein, and
causeth the union thereof, and doeth everything which
appertaineth to the birth-chamber of the divine city.
When he setteth in life, like crystal, he performeth
everything therein, and the things which he doeth
are like unto the things which are done in the Lake
of Twofold Fire, wherein there is none that rejoiceth,
and wherein are all manner of evil things. The god
Hetep goeth in, and cometh out, and goeth backwards
[in] that Field which gathereth together all manner
of things for the birth-chamber of the god of the city.
When he setteth in life, like crystal, he performeth
all manner of things therein which are like unto the
things which are done in the Lake of Twofold Fire,
wherein there is none that rejoiceth, and wherein are
all manner of evil things.
" Let me live with the god Hetep, clothed and
not plundered by the lords of the north, and let the
lord of divine things bring food unto me. Let him
make me to go forward, and let me come out, and
let him bring my power unto me there ; let me
receive it, and let my equipment be from the god
Hetep. Let me gain the mastery over the great and
192 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
mighty word which is in my body in this place
wherein I am, for by means of it I will remember
and I will forget. Let me go forward on my way
and let me plough. I am at peace with the god
of the city, and I know the waters, and the cities,
and the nomes, and the lakes which are in Sekhet-
Hetep. I exist therein, I am strong therein, I have
become a spirit (KHU) therein, I eat therein, I sow
seed therein, I reap the harvest therein, I plough
therein, I make love therein, and I am at peace with
the god Hetep therein. Behold I scatter seed therein,
I sail about among its lakes, and I advance to the
cities thereof, 0 divine Hetep. Behold, my mouth is
provided with my [teeth which are like] horns ; grant
me therefore an overflowing supply of the food
whereon the 'Doubles' (KAU) and the Spirits (KHU)
do live. I have passed the judgment which Sim
passeth upon him that knoweth him, therefore let me
go forth to the cities of [Hetep], and let me sail
about among its lakes, and let me walk about in
Sekhet-Hetep. Behold Ea is in heaven, and behold
the god Hetep is the twofold offering thereof. I have
come forward to the land [of Hetep], I have girded
up my loins and come forth so that the gifts which
are about to be given unto me may be given, and I
am glad, and I have laid hold upon my strength
which the god Hetep hath greatly increased for
me."
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 193
"0 Unen-em-hetep,1 I have entered into thee, and
my soul followeth after me, and my divine food is
upon my hands. 0 Lady of the two lands,2 who
stablishest my word whereby I remember and forget,
let me live uninjured, and without any injury [being
done] unto me. 0 grant to me, 0 do thou grant to
me, joy of heart ; make thou me to be at peace, bind
thou up my sinews and muscles, and make me to
receive the air."
"O Unen-em-hetep, O Lady of the winds, I have
entered into thee, and I have shewn3 my head
[therein]. Ba sleepeth, but I am awake, and there
is the goddess Hast at the gate of heaven by night.
Obstacles have been set before me, but I have
gathered together what Ka hath emitted. I am in
my city."
"O Nut-urt,* I have entered into thee and I have
reckoned up my harvest, and I go forward to Uakh.5
I am the Bull enveloped in turquoise, the lord of the
Field of the Bull, the lord of the divine speech of the
goddess Septet (Sothis) at her hours. O Uakh, I have
entered into thee, I haye eaten my bread, I have
gotten the mastery over choice pieces of the flesh of
oxen and of feathered fowl, and the birds of Shu have
1 The name of the first large section of Sekhet-Aaru.
2 A lake in the second section of Sekhet-Aaru.
* Literally, "opened."
4 Tlie nam'1 of a lake in the first section of Sekhet-Aaru.
4 The name of a lake in the second section of Sekhet-Aiiru.
194 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
been given unto me ; I follow after the gods, and the
divine ' Doubles ' (KAU)."
"0 Tchefet,1 I have entered into thee. I array
myself in apparel, and I have guarded myself with
the Sa garment of Ra ; now behold, he is in heaven,
and those who dwell therein follow him, and I also
follow Ra in heaven. O Unen-em-hetep, lord of
the two lands, I have entered into thee, and I have
plunged into the lakes of Tchesert; behold me now,
for all uncleanness hath departed from me. The Great
God groweth therein, and behold, I have found [food
therein] ; I have snared feathered fowl and I feed
upon the finest of them."
" 0 Qenqentet,2 I have entered into thee, and I have
seen the Osiris [my father], and I have gazed upon
my mother, and I have made love. I have captured
the worms and serpents [which are there] and have
delivered myself. I know the name of the god who
is opposite to the goddess Tchesert, who hath straight
hair and is provided with horns; he reapeth, but I
both plough and reap."
"O Hast,8 I have entered into thee, and I have
driven back those who would come to the turquoise
[sky] ; and I have followed the winds of the com-
pany of the gods. The Great God hath given my
head unto me, and he who hath bound on me my
1 The name of a district in the third section of Sekhet-Aaru.
2 The name of a lake in the first section of Sekhet-Aaru.
1 The name of i\ lake in the third section of Sekhet-Aaru.
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. IQ5
head is the Mighty One with the eyes of turquoise,
that is to say, Ari-en-ab-f (i.e., He who doeth as he
pleaseth)."
" 0 Usert,1 I have come unto thee at the house
where the divine food is brought unto me."
" 0 Smam,2 I have come unto thee. My heart
watcheth, and I am provided with the white crown.
I am led into celestial regions, and I make the things
of earth to flourish; and there is joy of heart for the
Bull, and for celestial beings, and for the company of
the gods. I am the god who is the Bull, the lord of
the gods as he goeth forth from the turquoise
[sky]."
" O divine nome of wheat and barley, I have come
unto thee, I have come forward to thee, and I have
taken up that which followeth me, namely, the best of
the libations of the company of the gods. I have tied
my boat in the celestial lakes, I have lifted up the post
at which to anchor, I have recited the prescribed words
with my voice, and I have ascribed praises unto the
gods who dwell in Sekhet-hetep."
Other joys, however, than those described above,
await the man who has passed satisfactorily through
the judgment and has made his way into the realm of
the gods. For, in answer to a long petition in the
Tapyrus of Ani, which has been given above (see
1 The name r>f a lake in the third section of Sekhet-Aaru.
* The name of a lake in the third section of Sekhet-Aam.
196 THE DELIGHTS OF THE BLESSED.
p. 33 f.), the god Ea promises to the deceased the
following : " Thou shalt come forth into heaven, thou
shalt pass over the sky, thou shalt be joined unto the
starry deities. Praises shall be offered unto thee in
thy boat, thou shalt be hymned in the Atet boat, thou
shalt behold Ra within his shrine, thou shalt set
together with his Disk day by day, thou shalt see the
ANT l fish when it springeth into being in the waters of
turquoise, and thou shalt see the ABTU l fish in his hour.
It shall come to pass that the Evil One shall fall when
he layeth a snare to destroy thee, and the joints of his
neck and of his back shall be hacked asunder. Ea
[saileth] with a fair wind, and the Sektet boat draweth
on and cometh into port. The mariners of Ea rejoice,
and the heart of Nebt-ankh (i.e., Isis) is glad, for the
enemy of Ra hath fallen to the ground. Thou shalt
behold Horus on the standing-place of the pilot of the
boat, and Thoth and Maat shall stand one upon each
side of him. All the gods shall rejoice when they
behold Ra coming in peace to make the hearts of the
shining ones to live, and Osiris Ani, triumphant, the
scribe of the divine offspring of the lords of Thebes,
shall be along with them."
But, not content with sailing in the boat of Ra daily
as one of many beatified beings, the deceased hoped
to transform each of his limbs into a god, and when
this was effected to become Ea himself. Thus in
1 The nume of a mythological fish which swam at the bow of t.ie
boat of Ra.
THE DEIFICATION OF MEMBERS IQ7
Chapter XLII. of the Book of the Dead * the deceased
says —
" My hair is the hair of Nu.
" My face is the face of the Disk.
" My eyes are the eyes of Hathor.
" My ears are the ears of Ap-uat.
" My nose is the nose of Khenti-Khas.
" My lips are the lips of Anpu.
" My teeth are the teeth of Serqet.
" My neck is the neck of the divine goddess Tsis.
" My hands are the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu.
" My fore-arms are the fore-arms of Neith, the Lady
of Sais.
" My backbone is the backbone of Suti.
" My phallus is the phallus of Osiris.
" My reins are the reins of the Lords of Kher-aba.
" My chest is the chest of the Mighty one of terror.
" My belly and back are the belly and back of
Sekhet.
" My buttocks are the buttocks of the Eye of Horns.
" My hips and legs are the hips and legs of Nut.
" My feet are the feet of Ptah.
" My fingers and my leg-bones are the fingers and
leg-bones of the Living Gods." 2
And immediately after this the deceased says:
1 See The Chapter* of Coming Forth by Day, p. 93.
2 The idea of the deification of the human members was current
already in the Vlth dynasty. See Recutil de Travaux, torn. viii.
pp. 87, 88.
198 THE OBJECT OF PRAYERS AND AMULETS
" There is no member of my body which is not the
member of a god. The god Thoth shieldeth my body
altogether, and I am lia day by day."
Thus we see by what means the Egyptians believed
that mortal man could be raised from the dead, and
attain unto life everlasting. The resurrection was the
object' with which every prayer was said and every
ceremony performed, and every text, and every amulet,
and every formula, of each and every period, was
intended to enable the mortal to put on immortality
and to live eternally in a transformed glorified body.
If this fact be borne in mind many apparent difficulties
will disappear before the readers in this perusal of
Egyptian texts, and the religion of the Egyptians will
be seen to possess a consistence of aim and a steadiness
of principle which, to some, it at first appears to lack.
. THE END.
Printed by BALLANTYNK, HANSON &* Ca
Edinburgh &• London
,,J
3L Budge, (Sir) IHrnest Alfred
2441 Thompson Wallis
B8 Egyptian ideas of the future
1908 life
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